Citizens United v. FEC: The 5–4 Ruling, Dissent, and Super PACs

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is the 2010 Supreme Court decision that struck down federal restrictions on corporate and union spending for independent political speech during elections. The Court ruled 5–4 on January 21, 2010, holding that the First Amendment prohibits the government from banning such expenditures based on the corporate identity of the speaker.¹ The ruling reshaped campaign finance law in the United States, though its reach is often overstated: it did not eliminate disclosure requirements, and it did not permit corporations to give money directly to candidates.

The Documentary Behind the Case

Citizens United, a nonprofit corporation, produced a ninety-minute documentary called “Hillary: The Movie” that was sharply critical of then-Senator Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign. The organization planned to distribute the film through video-on-demand cable services within thirty days of primary elections.²

That timing put the film squarely inside a federal prohibition. Under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, commonly called McCain-Feingold, corporations and unions could not spend general treasury funds on “electioneering communications” — broadcasts mentioning a federal candidate — within thirty days of a primary or sixty days of a general election.³ Facing potential civil and criminal penalties, Citizens United sued, arguing the law was unconstitutional as applied to its film.²

How a Narrow Case Became a Broad Ruling

The case first arrived at the Supreme Court as a narrow question: did the broadcast restriction even apply to a feature-length documentary distributed through video-on-demand? Citizens United argued the law was aimed at short campaign ads, not long-form films. The Court heard oral arguments in March 2009 on that limited issue.⁴

Then the Court did something unusual. Rather than rule narrowly, it ordered a second round of oral arguments for September 2009 and asked the parties to brief a much bigger question: whether the corporate spending restrictions themselves should be struck down.¹ The majority concluded that the narrower arguments — that the documentary wasn’t really an “electioneering communication,” or that video-on-demand posed less risk than television — didn’t hold up under a fair reading of the statute.³ With the narrow paths closed, the Court took up the constitutional question directly.

The 5–4 Decision and What It Held

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas. Justice John Paul Stevens led the dissent, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor.⁴

Kennedy’s opinion argued that the government cannot deprive the public of the right to decide for itself which speakers and ideas deserve consideration, and that the identity of a speaker, whether a person, a nonprofit, or a corporation, does not strip speech of its constitutional protection.⁴

To reach that conclusion, the Court overturned two prior decisions. Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) had allowed states to ban corporate independent expenditures, reasoning that corporate spending could “distort” the political process.⁵ The portion of McConnell v. FEC (2003) that extended similar restrictions to electioneering communications also fell.² Roberts wrote a separate concurrence explaining why departing from those precedents was justified, framing Austin as an outlier in First Amendment case law that the government itself had struggled to defend in oral argument.⁶

The Dissent

Stevens wrote a lengthy dissent challenging both the outcome and the path the Court took to get there. He accused the majority of manufacturing a broad constitutional question no one had asked it to decide, and of overturning Austin because it disagreed with the result rather than because stare decisis principles required it. “Restating a merits argument with additional vigor does not give it extra weight in the stare decisis calculus,” he wrote.⁷

On the substance, Stevens drew a sharp line between human speakers and corporate ones. He called corporate political speech “derivative speech, speech by proxy” and noted that corporations cannot vote, cannot run for office, may be controlled by nonresidents, and may have interests fundamentally at odds with eligible voters.⁴

He also attacked what he called the majority’s “crabbed view of corruption.” Where the majority recognized only quid pro quo bribery as a legitimate government concern, Stevens argued corruption operates on a spectrum, and that giving special preference to big spenders degrades democracy even without an explicit exchange.⁴

What the Ruling Did Not Change

Citizens United is often described as if it swept away campaign finance law altogether. It didn’t. Two significant guardrails survived, and understanding them matters for anyone trying to grasp what the decision actually did.

Disclosure Requirements Still Apply

By an 8–1 vote, the Court upheld the law’s disclosure and disclaimer requirements. Anyone spending more than $10,000 on electioneering communications in a calendar year must still file a disclosure statement with the Federal Election Commission identifying the spender, the amount, the targeted election, and certain contributors. Televised political ads must still include a spoken and on-screen disclaimer identifying who paid for them. Justice Thomas was the sole dissenter on this point, arguing that disclosure requirements were also unconstitutional.⁴

Direct Contributions to Candidates Are Still Banned

The case addressed independent expenditures, meaning money spent on political speech without coordinating with a candidate. It left untouched the separate federal ban on corporations and unions giving money directly to candidates or their campaigns. That prohibition remains in effect.⁸ For the 2025–2026 election cycle, individual contributions to a candidate committee are capped at $3,500 per election, and multicandidate PACs are limited to $5,000 per election.⁹ A corporation still cannot write a check to a candidate.

The Rise of Super PACs

The most visible practical consequence of Citizens United came not from the decision alone but from its combination with a lower court ruling two months later. In SpeechNow.org v. FEC, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals applied Citizens United’s logic to strike down limits on individual contributions to groups that make only independent expenditures. The reasoning was straightforward: if independent spending does not create a risk of quid pro quo corruption, then limiting contributions to independent-expenditure-only groups serves no anticorruption interest either.¹⁰

Together, these two decisions created the legal framework for super PACs, political committees that can accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, and unions, so long as they spend independently and do not coordinate with candidates.⁹ Super PACs must still disclose their donors to the FEC, though the effectiveness of those disclosure rules when money flows through intermediary nonprofits has been an ongoing subject of debate.

1
Oyez. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
2
Federal Election Commission. Citizens United v. FEC
3
Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
4
Justia. Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)
5
Federal Election Commission. Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce
6
Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission – Roberts Concurrence
7
Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission – Stevens Dissent
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 52 USC 30118 – Contributions or Expenditures by National Banks, Corporations, or Labor Organizations
9
Federal Election Commission. Contribution Limits for 2025-2026
10
Federal Election Commission. SpeechNow.org v. FEC