Page:Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.pdf/76

12 2009). But while invoking stare decisis to support this position, the Government never once even mentions the compelling interest that Austin relied upon in the first place: the need to diminish “the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas.” 494 U. S., at 660.

Instead of endorsing Austin on its own terms, the Government urges us to reaffirm Austin’s specific holding on the basis of two new and potentially expansive interests—the need to prevent actual or apparent quid pro quo corruption, and the need to protect corporate shareholders. See Supp. Brief for Appellee 8–10, 12–13. Those interests may or may not support the result in Austin, but they were plainly not part of the reasoning on which Austin relied.

To its credit, the Government forthrightly concedes that Austin did not embrace either of the new rationales it now urges upon us. See, e.g., Supp. Brief for Appellee 11 (“The Court did not decide in Austin . . . whether the compelling interest in preventing actual or apparent corruption provides a constitutionally sufficient justification for prohibiting the use of corporate treasury funds for independent electioneering”); Tr. of Oral Arg. 45 (Sept. 9, 2009) (“Austin did not articulate what we believe to be the strongest compelling interest”); id., at 61 (“[The Court:] I take it we have never accepted your shareholder protection interest. This is a new argument. [The Government:] I think that that’s fair”); id., at 64 (“[The Court:] In other words, you are asking us to uphold Austin on the basis of two arguments, two principles, two compelling interests we have never accepted in [the context of limits on political expenditures]. [The Government:] [I]n this particular context, fair enough”).

To be clear: The Court in Austin nowhere relied upon the only arguments the Government now raises to support