Cite as: 540 U. S. 93 (2003)
Opinion of Kennedy, J.
bition." Ante, at 211. Although we normally presume that legislators would not deliberately enact an unconstitutional statute, that presumption is inapplicable here. There is no ambiguity regarding what § 204 is intended to accomplish. Enacted to supersede the Snowe-Jeffords Amendment that would have carved out precisely this exception for MCFL corporations, § 204 was written to broaden BCRA's scope to include issue-advocacy groups. See, e. g., App. to Brief for Appellant NRA et al. in No. 02-1675 et al., pp. 65a, 67a (Sen. Wellstone) ("[I]ndividuals with all this wealth" will "make their soft money contributions to these sham issue ads run by all these . . . organizations, which under this loophole can operate with impunity" to run "poisonous ads." I have an amendment that . . . make[s] sure . . . this big money doesn't get [through]"). Instead of deleting the Snowe-Jeffords Amendment from the bill, however, the Wellstone Amendment was inserted in a separate section to preserve severability.
Were we to indulge the presumption that Congress understood the law when it legislated, the Wellstone Amendment could be understood only as a frontal challenge to MCFL. Even were I to agree with the majority's interpretation of § 204, however, my analysis of Title II remains unaffected. The First Amendment protects the right of all organizations, not just a subset of them, to engage in political speech. See Austin, 494 U. S., at 700-701 (Kennedy, J., dissenting) ("The First Amendment does not permit courts to exercise speech suppression authority denied to legislatures").
5.
Title II's vagueness and overbreadth demonstrate Congress' fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment. The Court, it must be said, succumbs to the same mistake. The majority begins with a denunciation of direct campaign contributions by corporations and unions. It then uses this rhetorical momentum as its leverage to uphold the
339
Page: Index Previous 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007