author: Justice Kennedy Justice Stevens, Justice Thomas,

text:
    OVERTON, DIRECTOR, MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al. v. BAZZETTA et al.
    No. 02-94.
    Argued March 26, 2003
    Decided June 16, 2003

      Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Stevens, O’Connor, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined, post, p. 137. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Scalia, J., joined, post, p. 138.

      Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General of Michigan, argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Mike Cox, Attorney General, and Leo H. Friedman, Mark Matus, and Lisa C. Ward, Assistant Attorneys General.

      Jeffrey A. Lamken argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Olson, Assistant Attorney General McCallum, Deputy Solicitor General Clement, and Robert M. Loeb.

      Deborah LaBelle argued the cause for respondents. With her on the brief were Barbara R. Levine and Patricia A. Streeter.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Colorado et al. by Ken Salazar, Attorney General of Colorado, Alan J. Gilbert, Solicitor General, and Juliana M. Zolynas, Assistant Attorney General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: William H. Pryor, Jr., of Alabama, Charlie Crist of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Alan G. Lance of Idaho, Steve Carter of Indiana, J Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, W. A Drew Edmond-son of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, D. Michael Fisher of Pennsylvania, Mark Barnett of South Dakota, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, Greg Abbott of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, and Patrick J. Crank of Wyoming; and for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger and Charles L. Hobson.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. by Elizabeth Alexander, David C. Fathi, Steven R. Shapiro, Lenora M. Lapidus, Daniel L. Greenberg, John Boston, Michael J. Steinberg, and Kary L. Moss; for the National Council on Crime and Delinquency et al. by Jill M. Wheaton; and for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia et al. by Paul Denenfeld and Gio-vanna Shay.

        Roderick M. Hills, Jr., filed a brief for the National Council of La Raza et al. as amici curiae.

   Justice Kennedy

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The State of Michigan, by regulation, places certain restrictions on visits with prison inmates. The question before the Court is whether the regulations violate the substantive due process mandate of the Fourteenth Amendment, or the First or Eighth Amendments as applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.

I

The population of Michigan’s prisons increased in the early 1990’s. More inmates brought more visitors, straining the resources available for prison supervision and control. In particular, prison officials found it more difficult to maintain order during visitation and to prevent smuggling or trafficking in drugs. Special problems were encountered with the increase in visits by children, who are at risk of seeing or hearing harmful conduct during visits and must be supervised with special care in prison visitation facilities.

The incidence of substance abuse in the State’s prisons also increased in this period. Drug and alcohol abuse by prisoners is unlawful and a direct threat to legitimate objectives of the corrections system,, including rehabilitation, the maintenance of basic order, and the prevention of violence in the prisons.

In response to these concerns, the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC or Department) revised its prison visitation policies in 1995, promulgating the regulations here at issue. One aspect of the Department’s approach was to limit the visitors a prisoner is eligible to receive, in order to decrease the total number of visitors.

Under MDOC’s regulations, an inmate may receive visits only from individuals placed on an approved visitor list, except that qualified members of the clergy and attorneys on official business may visit without being listed. Mich. Admin. Code Rule 791.6609(2) (1999); Director’s Office Mem. 1995-59 (effective date Aug. 25,1995). The list may include an unlimited number of members of the prisoner’s immediate family and 10 other individuals the prisoner designates, subject to some restrictions. Rule 791.6609(2). Minors under the age of 18 may not be placed on the list unless they are the children, stepchildren, grandchildren, or siblings of the inmate. Rule 791.6609(2)(b); Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 791.268a (West Supp. 2003). If an inmate’s parental rights have been terminated, the child may not be a visitor. Rule 791.6609(6)(a) (1999). A child authorized to visit must be accompanied by an adult who is an immediate family member of the child or of the inmate or who is the legal guardian of the child. Rule 791.6609(5); Mich. Dept. of Corrections Procedure OP-SLF/STF-05.03.140, p. 9 (effective date Sept. 15, 1999). An inmate may not place a former prisoner on the visitor list unless the former prisoner is a member of the inmate’s immediate family and the warden has given prior approval. Rule 791.6609(7).

The Department’s revised policy also sought to control the widespread use of drugs and alcohol among prisoners. Prisoners who commit multiple substance-abuse violations are not permitted to receive any visitors except attorneys and members of the clergy. Rule 791.6609(ll)(d). An inmate subject to this restriction may apply for reinstatement of visitation privileges after two years. Rule 791.6609(12). Reinstatement is within the warden’s discretion. Ibid.

Respondents are prisoners, their friends, and their family members. They brought this action under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, alleging that the restrictions upon visitation violate the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. It was certified as a class action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23.

Inmates who are classified as the highest security risks, as determined by the MDOC, are limited to noncontact visitation. This case does not involve a challenge to the method for making that determination. By contrast to contact visitation, during which inmates are allowed limited physical contact with their visitors in a large visitation room, inmates restricted to noncontact visits must communicate with their visitors through a glass panel, the inmate and the visitor being on opposite sides of a booth. In some facilities the booths are located in or at one side of the same room used for contact visits. The case before us concerns the regulations as they pertain to noncontact visits.

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan agreed with the prisoners that the regulations pertaining to noncontact visits were invalid. Bazzetta v. McGinnis, 148 F. Supp. 2d 813 (2001). The Sixth Circuit affirmed, 286 F. 3d 311 (2002), and we granted certiorari, 537 U. S. 1043 (2002).

II

The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that the restrictions on noncontact visits are invalid. This was error. We first consider the contention, accepted by the Court of Appeals, that the regulations infringe a constitutional right of association.

We have said that the Constitution protects “certain kinds of highly personal relationships,” Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 618, 619-620 (1984). And outside the prison context, there is some discussion in our cases of a right to maintain certain familial relationships, including association among members of an immediate family and association between grandchildren and grandparents. See Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494 (1977) (plurality opinion); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923).

This is not an appropriate case for further elaboration of those matters. The very object of imprisonment is confinement. Many of the liberties and privileges enjoyed by other citizens must be surrendered by the prisoner. An inmate does not retain rights inconsistent with proper incarceration. See Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners’ Labor Union, Inc., 433 U. S. 119, 125 (1977); Shaw v. Murphy, 532 U. S. 223, 229 (2001). And, as our cases have established, freedom of association is among the rights least compatible with incarceration. See Jones, supra, at 125-126; Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 (1983). Some curtailment of that freedom must be expected in the prison context.

We do not hold, and we do not imply, that any right to intimate association is altogether terminated by incarceration or is always irrelevant to claims made by prisoners. We need not attempt to explore or define the asserted right of association at any length or determine the extent to which it survives incarceration because the challenged regulations bear a rational relation to legitimate penological interests. This suffices to sustain the regulation in question. See Turner v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78, 89 (1987). We have taken a similar approach in previous cases, such as Pell v. Procunier, 417 U. S. 817, 822 (1974), which we cited with approval in Turner. In Pell, we found it unnecessary to decide whether an asserted First Amendment right survived incarceration. Prison administrators had reasonably exercised their judgment as to the appropriate means of furthering penological goals, and that was the controlling rationale for our decision. We must accord substantial deference to the professional judgment of prison administrators, who bear a significant responsibility for defining the legitimate goals of a corrections system and for determining the most appropriate means to accomplish them. See, e. g., Pell, supra, at 826-827; Helms, supra, at 467; Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U. S. 401, 408 (1989); Jones, supra, at 126, 128; Turner, supra, at 85, 89; Block v. Rutherford, 468 U. S. 576, 588 (1984); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 562 (1979). The burden, moreover, is not on the State to prove the validity of prison regulations but on the prisoner to disprove it. See Jones, supra, at 128; O’Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U. S. 342, 350 (1987); Shaw, supra, at 232. Respondents have failed to do so here.

In Turner we held that four factors are relevant in deciding whether a prison regulation affecting a constitutional right that survives incarceration withstands constitutional challenge: whether the regulation has a “ Valid, rational connection’ ” to a legitimate governmental interest; whether alternative means are open to inmates to exercise the asserted right; what impact an accommodation of the right would have on guards and inmates and prison resources; and whether there are “ready alternatives” to the regulation. 482 U. S., at 89-91.

Turning to the restrictions on visitation by children, we conclude that the regulations bear a rational relation to MDOC’s valid interests in maintaining internal security and protecting child visitors from exposure to sexual or other misconduct or from accidental injury. The regulations promote internal security, perhaps the most legitimate of penological goals, see, e.g., Pell, supra, at 823, by reducing the total number of visitors and by limiting the disruption caused by children in particular. Protecting children from harm is also a legitimate goal, see, e. g., Block, supra, at 586-587. The logical connection between this interest and the regulations is demonstrated by trial testimony that reducing the number of children allows guards to supervise them better to ensure their safety and to minimize the disruptions they cause within the visiting areas.

As for the regulation requiring children to be accompanied by a family member or legal guardian, it is reasonable to ensure that the visiting child is accompanied and supervised by those adults charged with protecting the child’s best interests.

Respondents argue that excluding minor nieces and nephews and children as to whom parental rights have been terminated bears no rational relationship to these penological interests. We reject this contention, and in all events it would not suffice to invalidate the regulations as to all non-contact visits. To reduce the number of child visitors, a line must be drawn, and the categories set out by these regulations are reasonable. Visits are allowed between an inmate and those children closest to him or her — children, grandchildren, and siblings. The prohibition on visitation by children as to whom the inmate no longer has parental rights is simply a recognition by prison administrators of a status determination made in other official proceedings.

MDOC’s regulation prohibiting visitation by former inmates bears a self-evident connection to the State’s interest in maintaining prison security and preventing future crimes. We have recognized that “communication with other felons is a potential spur to criminal behavior.” Turner, supra, at 91-92.

Finally, the restriction on visitation for inmates with two substance-abuse violations, a bar which may be removed after two years, serves the legitimate goal of deterring the use of drugs and alcohol within the prisons. Drug smuggling and drug use in prison are intractable problems. See, e. g., Bell, supra, at 559; Block, supra, at 586-587; Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U. S. 517, 527 (1984). Withdrawing visitation privileges is a proper and even necessary management technique to induce compliance with the rules of inmate behavior, especially for high-security prisoners who have few other privileges to lose. In this regard we note that numerous other States have implemented similar restrictions on visitation privileges to control and deter substance-abuse violations. See Brief for State of Colorado et al. as Amici Curiae 4-9.

Respondents argue that the regulation bears no rational connection to preventing substance abuse because it has been invoked in certain instances where the infractions were, in respondents' view, minor. Even if we were inclined, though, to substitute our judgment for the conclusions of prison officials concerning the infractions reached by the regulations, the individual cases respondents cite are not sufficient to strike down the regulations as to all noncontact visits. Respondents also contest the 2-year bar and note that reinstatement of visitation is not automatic even at the end of two years. We agree the restriction is severe. And if faced with evidence that MDOC’s regulation is treated as a de facto permanent ban on all visitation for certain inmates, we might reach a different conclusion in a challenge to a particular application of the regulation. Those issues are not presented in this case, which challenges the validity of the restriction on noncontact visits in all instances.

Having determined that each of the challenged regulations bears a rational relationship to a legitimate penological interest, we consider whether inmates have alternative means of exercising the constitutional right they seek to assert. Turner, 482 U. S., at 90. Were it shown that no alternative means of communication existed, though it would not be conclusive, it would be some evidence that the regulations were unreasonable. That showing, however, cannot be made. Respondents here do have alternative means of associating with those prohibited from visiting. As was the case in Pell, inmates can communicate with those who may not visit by sending messages through those who are allowed to visit. 417 U. S., at 825. Although this option is not available to inmates barred all visitation after two violations, they and other inmates may communicate with persons outside the prison by letter and telephone. Respondents protest that letter writing is inadequate for illiterate inmates and for communications with young children. They say, too, that phone calls are brief and expensive, so that these alternatives are not sufficient. Alternatives to visitation need not be ideal, however; they need only be available. Here, the alternatives are of sufficient utility that they give some support to the regulations, particularly in a context where visitation is limited, not completely withdrawn.

Another relevant consideration is the impact that accommodation of the asserted associational right would have on guards, other inmates, the allocation of prison resources, and the safety of visitors. See Turner, supra, at 90; Hudson, supra, at 526 (visitor safety). Accommodating respondents’ demands would cause a significant reallocation of the prison system’s financial resources and would impair the ability of corrections officers to protect all who are inside a prison’s walls. When such consequences are present, we are “particularly deferential” to prison administrators’ regulatory judgments. Turner, supra, at 90.

Finally, we consider whether the presence of ready alternatives undermines the reasonableness of the regulations. Turner does not impose a least-restrictive-alternative test, but asks instead whether the prisoner has pointed to some obvious regulatory alternative that fully accommodates the asserted right while not imposing more than a de minimis cost to the valid penological goal. 482 U. S., at 90-91. Respondents have not suggested alternatives meeting this high standard for any of the regulations at issue. We disagree with respondents’ suggestion that allowing visitation by nieces and nephews or children for whom parental rights have been terminated is an obvious alternative. Increasing the number of child visitors in that way surely would have more than a negligible effect on the goals served by the regulation. As to the limitation on visitation by former inmates, respondents argue the restriction could be time limited, but we defer to MDOC’s judgment that a longer restriction better serves its interest in preventing the criminal activity that can result from these interactions. Respondents suggest the duration of the restriction for inmates with substance-abuse violations could be shortened or that it could be applied only for the most serious violations, but these alternatives do not go so far toward accommodating the asserted right with so little cost to penological goals that they meet Turner’s high standard. These considerations cannot justify the decision of the Court of Appeals to invalidate the regulation as to all noncontact visits.

III

Respondents also claim that the restriction on visitation for inmates with two substance-abuse violations is a cruel and unusual condition of confinement in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The restriction undoubtedly makes the prisoner’s confinement more difficult to bear. But it does not, in the circumstances of this case, fall below the standards mandated by the Eighth Amendment. Much of what we have said already about the withdrawal of privileges that incarceration is expected to bring applies here as well. Michigan, like many other States, uses withdrawal of visitation privileges for a limited period as a regular means of effecting prison discipline. This is not a dramatic departure from accepted standards for conditions of confinement. Cf. Sandin v. Conner, 515 U. S. 472, 485 (1995). Nor does the regulation create inhumane prison conditions, deprive inmates of basic necessities, or fail to protect their health or safety. Nor does it involve the infliction of pain or injury, or deliberate indifference to the risk that it might occur. See, e. g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976); Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U. S. 337 (1981). If the withdrawal of all visitation privileges were permanent or. for a much longer period, or if it were applied in an arbitrary manner to a particular inmate, the case would present different considerations. An individual claim based on indefinite withdrawal of visitation or denial of procedural safeguards, however, would not support the ruling of the Court of Appeals that the entire regulation is invalid.

* * *

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered.

Justice Stevens,

with whom Justice Souter, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer join, concurring.

Our decision today is faithful to the principle that “federal courts must take cognizance of the valid constitutional claims of prison inmates.” Turner v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78, 84 (1987). As we explained in Turner:

“Prison walls do not form a barrier separating prison inmates from the protections of the Constitution. Hence, for example, prisoners retain the constitutional right to petition the government for the redress of grievances, Johnson v. Avery, 393 U. S. 483 (1969); they are protected against invidious racial discrimination by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Lee v. Washington, 390 U. S. 333 (1968); and they enjoy the protections of due process, Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539 (1974); Homes v. Kerner, 404 U. S. 519 (1972). Because prisoners retain these rights, ‘[w]hen a prison regulation or practice offends a fundamental constitutional guarantee, federal courts will discharge their duty to protect constitutional rights.’ Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U. S., at 405-406.” Ibid.

It was in the groundbreaking decision in Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471 (1972), in which we held that parole revocation is a deprivation of liberty within the meaning of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, that the Court rejected the view once held by some state courts that a prison inmate is a mere slave. See United States ex rel. Miller v. Twomey, 479 F. 2d 701, 711-713 (CA7 1973). Under that rejected view, the Eighth Amendment’s proscription of cruel and unusual punishment would have marked the outer limit of the prisoner’s constitutional rights. It is important to emphasize that nothing in the Court’s opinion today signals a resurrection of any such approach in cases of this kind. See ante, at 131. To the contrary, it remains true that the “restraints and the punishment which a criminal conviction entails do not place the citizen beyond the ethical tradition that accords respect to the dignity and intrinsic worth of every individual.” 479 F. 2d, at 712.

Justice Thomas,

with whom Justice Scalia joins, concurring in the judgment.

I concur in the judgment of the Court because I would sustain the challenged regulations on different grounds from those offered by the majority.

A

The Court is asked to consider “[wjhether prisoners have a right to non-contact prison visitation protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” Brief for Petitioners i. In my view, the question presented, as formulated in the order granting certiorari, draws attention to the wrong inquiry. Rather than asking in the abstract whether a certain right “survives” incarceration, ante, at 132, the Court should ask whether a particular prisoner’s lawful sentence took away a right enjoyed by free persons.

The Court’s precedents on the rights of prisoners rest on the unstated (and erroneous) presumption that the Constitution contains an implicit definition of incarceration. This is manifestly not the case, and, in my view, States are free to define and redefine all types of punishment, including imprisonment, to encompass various types of deprivations — provided only that those deprivations are consistent with the Eighth Amendment. Under this view, the Court’s precedents on prisoner “rights” bear some reexamination.

When faced with a prisoner asserting a deprivation of constitutional rights in this context, the Court has asked first whether the right survives incarceration, Pell v. Procunier, 417 U. S. 817, 822 (1974), and then whether a prison restriction on that right “bear[s] a rational relation to legitimate penological interests.” Ante, at 132 (citing Turner v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78, 89 (1987)).

Pell and its progeny do not purport to impose a substantive limitation on the power of a State to sentence a person convicted of a criminal offense to a deprivation of the right at issue. For example, in Turner, the Court struck down a prison regulation that prohibited inmates from marrying absent permission from the superintendent. 482 U. S., at 89, 94-99. Turner cannot be properly understood, however, as holding that a State may not sentence those convicted to both imprisonment and the denial of a constitutional right to marry. The only provision of the Constitution that speaks to the scope of criminal punishment is the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment, and Turner cited neither that Clause nor the Court’s precedents interpreting it. Prisoners challenging their sentences must, absent an unconstitutional procedural defect, rely solely on the Eighth Amendment.

The proper inquiry, therefore, is whether a sentence validly deprives the prisoner of a constitutional right enjoyed by ordinary, law-abiding persons. Whether a sentence encompasses the extinction of a constitutional right enjoyed by free persons turns on state law, for it is a State’s prerogative to determine how it will punish violations of its law, and this Court awards great deference to such determinations. See, e. g., Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 824 (1991) (“Under our constitutional system, the primary responsibility, for defining crimes against state law [and] fixing punishments for the commission of these crimes . . . rests with the States”); see also Ewing v. California, 538 U. S. 11, 24 (2003) (opinion of O’Connor, J.) (“[0]ur tradition of deferring to state legislatures in making and implementing such important [sentencing] policy decisions is longstanding”).

Turner is therefore best thought of as implicitly deciding that the marriage restriction was not within the scope of the State’s lawfully imposed sentence and that, therefore, the regulation worked a deprivation of a constitutional right without sufficient process. Yet, when the resolution of a federal constitutional issue may be rendered irrelevant by the determination of a predicate state-law question, federal courts should ordinarily abstain from passing on the federal issue. Railroad Comm’n of Tex. v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496 (1941). Here, if the prisoners’ lawful sentences encompassed the extinction of any right to intimate association as a matter of state law, all that would remain would be respondents’ (meritless, see Part II, infra) Eighth Amendment claim. Petitioners have not asked this Court to abstain under Pullman, and the issue of Pullman abstention was not considered below. As a result, petitioners have, in this case, submitted to the sort of guesswork about the meaning of prison sentences that is the hallmark of the Turner inquiry. Here, furthermore, Pullman abstention seems unnecessary because respondents make no effort to show that the sentences imposed on them did not extinguish the right they now seek to enforce. And for good reason.

It is highly doubtful that, while sentencing each respondent to imprisonment, the State of Michigan intended to permit him to have any right of access to visitors. Such access seems entirely inconsistent with Michigan’s goal of segregating a criminal from society, see Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 482 (1972) (incarceration by design intrudes on the freedom “to be with family and friends and to form the other enduring attachments of normal life”); cf. Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U. S. 238 (1983) (upholding incarceration several hours of flight away from home).

B

Though the question whether the State of Michigan intended to confer upon respondents a right to receive visitors is ultimately for the State itself to answer, it must nonetheless be confronted in this case. The Court’s Turner analysis strongly suggests that the asserted rights were extinguished by the State of Michigan in incarcerating respondents. Restrictions that are rationally connected to the running of a prison, that are designed to avoid adverse impacts on guards, inmates, or prison resources, that cannot be replaced by “ready alternatives,” and that leave inmates with alternative means of accomplishing what the restrictions prohibit, are presumptively included within a sentence of imprisonment. Moreover, the history of incarceration as punishment supports the view that the sentences imposed on respondents terminated any rights of intimate association. From the time prisons began to be used as places where criminals served out their sentences, they were administered much in the way Michigan administers them today.

Incarceration in the 18th century in both England and the Colonies was virtually nonexistent as a form of punishment. L. Friedman, Crime and Punishment in American History 48 (1993) (hereinafter Friedman) (“From oúr standpoint, what is most obviously missing, as a punishment [in the colonial system of corrections], is imprisonment”). Colonial jails had a very limited function of housing debtors and holding prisoners who were awaiting trial. See id., at 49. These institutions were generally characterized by “[disorder and neglect.” McGowen, The Well-Ordered Prison: England, 1780-1865, in The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society 79 (N. Morris & D. Roth-man eds. 1995) (hereinafter McGowen). It is not therefore surprising that these jails were quite permeable. A debtor could come and go as he pleased, as long as he remained within a certain area (“ 'prison bounds’ ”) and returned to jail to sleep. Friedman 49. Moreover, a prisoner with connections could get food and clothing from the outside, id., at 50; see also W. Lewis, From Newgate to Dannemora: The Rise of the Penitentiary in New York, 1796-1848, p. 49 (1965) (hereinafter Lewis) (“Many visitors brought the felons such items of contraband as rum, tools, money, and unauthorized messages”). In sum, “[t]here was little evidence of authority,” McGowen 79, uniformity, and discipline.

Prison as it is known today and its part in the penitentiary system were “basically a nineteenth-century invention.” Friedman 48. During that time, the prison became the centerpiece of correctional theory, while whipping, a traditional form of punishment in colonial times, fell into disrepute. The industrialization produced rapid growth, population mobility, and large cities with no well-defined community; as a result, public punishments resulting in stigma and shame wielded little power, as such methods were effective only in small closed communities. Id., at 77.

The rise of the penitentiary and confinement as punishment was accompanied by the debate about the Auburn and Pennsylvania systems, both of which imposed isolation from fellow prisoners and the outside. D. Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum 82 (1971) (hereinafter Rothman) (“As both schemes placed maximum emphasis on preventing the prisoners from communicating with anyone else, the point of dispute was whether convicts should work silently in large groups or individually within solitary cells”); id., at 95. Although there were several justifications for such isolation, they all centered around the belief in the necessity of constructing a special setting for the “deviant” (i e., criminal), where he would be placed in an environment targeted at rehabilitation, far removed from the corrupting influence of his family and community. Id., at 71; A. Hirsch, The Rise of the Penitentiary: Prisons and Punishment in Early America 17, 19, 23 (1992); cf. Friedman 77 (describing the changing attitudes toward the origin of crime). Indeed, every feature of the design of a penitentiary — external appearance, internal arrangement, and daily routine — were aimed at achieving that goal. Rothman 79 — 80; see also id., at 83.

Whatever the motives for establishing the penitentiary as the means of combating crime, confinement became standardized in the period between 1780 and 1865. McGowen 79. Prisons were turned into islands of “undeviating regularity,” Lewis 122, with little connection to the outside, McGowen 108. Inside the prisons, there were only prisoners and jailers; the difference between the two groups was conspicuously obvious. Id., at 79. Prisoners’ lives were carefully regulated, including the contacts with the outside. They were permitted virtually no visitors; even their letters were censored. Any contact that might resemble normal sociability among prisoners or with the outside world became a target for controls and prohibitions. Id., at 108.

To the extent that some prisons allowed visitors, it was not for the benefit of those confined, but rather to their detriment. Many prisons offered tours in order to increase revenues. During such tours, visitors could freely stare at prisoners, while prisoners had to obey regulations categorically forbidding them to so much as look at a visitor. Lewis 124. In addition to the general “burden on the convict’s spirit” in the form of “the galling knowledge that he was in all his humiliation subject to the frequent gaze of visitors, some of whom might be former friends or neighbors,” presence of women visitors made the circumstances “almost unendurable,” prompting a prison physician to complain about allowing women in. Ibid.

Although by the 1840’s some institutions relaxed their rules against correspondence and visitations, the restrictions continued to be severe. For example, Sing Sing allowed convicts to send one letter every six months, provided it was penned by the chaplain and censored by the warden. Each prisoner was permitted to have one visit from his relatives during his sentence, provided it was properly supervised. No reading materials of any kind, except a Bible, were allowed inside. S. Christianson, With Liberty for Some: 500 Years of Imprisonment in America 145 (1998). With such stringent regimentation of prisoners’ lives, the prison “had assumed an unmistakable appearance,” MeGowen 79, one which did not envision any entitlement to visitation.

Although any State is free to alter its definition of incarceration to include the retention of constitutional rights previously enjoyed, it appears that Michigan sentenced respondents against the backdrop of this conception of imprisonment.

II

In my view, for the reasons given in Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U. S. 1, 18-19 (1992) (Thomas, J., dissenting), regulations pertaining to visitations are not punishment within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment. Consequently, respondents’ Eighth Amendment challenge must fail.

      A prisoner’s sentence is the punishment imposed pursuant to state law. Sentencing a criminal to a term of imprisonment may, under state law, carry with it the implied delegation to prison officials to discipline and otherwise supervise the criminal while he is incarcerated. Thus, restrictions imposed by prison officials may also be a part of the sentence, provided that those officials are not acting ultra vires with respect to the discretion given them, by implication, in the sentence.


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Justice Souter Justice Kennedy, Justice Thomas,

license: Public Domain

text:
    FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION v. BEAUMONT et al.
    No. 02-403.
    Argued March 25, 2003
    Decided June 16, 2003

      Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Stevens, O’Connor, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Kennedy, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 163. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia, J., joined, post, p. 164.

      Deputy Solicitor General Clement argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Olson, Assistant Attorney General McCollum, Gregory G. Garre, Douglas N. Letter, Edward Himmelfarb, and Jonathan H. Levy.

      James Bopp, Jr., argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Richard E. Coleson and Thomas J. Marzen.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America by Jeffrey Robert White; for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of'Law by Burt Neu-borne, Frederick A. 0. Schwarz, and Deborah Goldberg; and for Public Citizen, Inc., et al. by Scott L. Nelson, Alan B. Morrison, and David C. Vladeck.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Taxpayers Alliance by Alan R Dye; for the Pacific Legal Foundation by Deborah J. La Fetra; and for RealCampaignReform.org, Inc., et al. by William J. Olson, John S. Miles, and Herbert W. Titus.

   Justice Souter

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Since 1907, federal law has barred corporations from contributing directly to candidates for federal office. We hold that applying the prohibition to nonprofit advocacy corporations is consistent with the First Amendment.

I

The current statute makes it unlawful... for any corporation whatever ... to make a contribution or expenditure in connection with” certain federal elections, 90 Stat. 490, as renumbered and amended, 2 U. S. C. § 441b(a), “contribution or expenditure” each being defined to include “anything of value,” § 441b(b)(2). The prohibition does not, however, forbid “the establishment, administration, and solicitation of contributions to a separate segregated fund to be utilized for political purposes.” § 441b(b)(2)(C); see § 431(4)(B). Such a PAC (so called after the political action committee that runs it) may be wholly controlled by the sponsoring corporation, whose employees and stockholders or members generally may be solicited for contributions. See §§ 441b(b)(4)(B)-(C); Federal Election Comm’n v. National Right to Work Comm., 459 U. S. 197, 200, n. 4 (1982). While federal law requires PACs to register and disclose their activities, §§ 432-434; see Federal Election Comm’n v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U. S. 238, 253-254 (1986), the law leaves them free to make contributions as well as other expenditures in connection with federal elections, § 441b(b)(2)(C).

Respondents are a corporation known as North Carolina Right to Life, Inc., three of its officers, and a North Carolina voter (here, together, NCRL), who have sued the Federal Election Commission, the independent agency set up to “administer, seek to obtain compliance with, and formulate policy with respect to” the federal electoral laws. §437c (b)(1). NCRL challenges the constitutionality of § 441b and the FEC’s regulations implementing that section, 11 CFR §§ 114.2(b), 114.10 (2003), but only so far as they apply to NCRL. The corporation is organized under the laws of North Carolina to provide counseling to pregnant women and to urge alternatives to abortion, and as a nonprofit advocacy corporation it is exempted from federal taxation by § 501(e)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U. S. C. § 501(c)(4). ' It has no shareholders and, although it receives some donations from traditional business corporations, it is “overwhelmingly funded by private contributions from individuals.” App. 14. NCRL has made contributions and expenditures in connection with state elections, but not federal, owing to 2 U. S. C. § 441b. Instead, it has established a PAC, the North Carolina Right to Life, Inc., Political Action Committee, which has contributed to federal candidates. See North Carolina Right to Life, Inc. v. Bartlett, 168 F. 3d 705, 709 (CA4 1999), cert. denied, 528 U. S. 1153 (2000).

The District Court granted summary judgment to NCRL and held §441b unconstitutional as applied to the corporation, both as to direct contributions and independent expenditures. 137 F. Supp. 2d 648 (EDNC 2000). A divided Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed, 278 F. 3d 261 (2002), relying primarily on Massachusetts Citizens for Life, in which this Court held it unconstitutional to apply the statute to independent expenditures by Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., a nonprofit advocacy corporation in some respects like NCRL. The Court of Appeals ruled, first, that the prohibition on independent expenditures may not be applied to NCRL. Although the panel acknowledged that Massachusetts Citizens for Life, unlike NCRL, had a formal policy against accepting corporate donations, see Massachusetts Citizens for Life, supra, at 263-264 (describing this feature of the organization as “essential to our holding”), it nevertheless treated NCRL as materially indistinguishable from Massachusetts Citizens for Life.

To the point for present purposes, the Court of Appeals went on to hold the ban on direct contributions likewise unconstitutional as applied to NCRL. While the majority of the divided court recognized that regulation of campaign contributions has received greater deference under First Amendment cases than regulation of independent expenditures, 278 F. 3d, at 274 (citing Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U. S. 377, 386-388 (2000)), it held the ban on direct contributions unjustified as applied to “[Massachusetts Citizens for Life]-type corporations,” which it thought “pose[d] no risk of ‘unfair deployment of wealth for political purposes.’ ” 278 F. 3d, at 275 (quoting Massachusetts Citizens for Life, supra, at 259). The Court of Appeals reasoned that “[t]he rationale utilized by the Court in [Massachusetts Citizens for Life] to declare prohibitions on independent expenditures unconstitutional as applied to [the advocacy corporation involved there] is equally applicable in the context of direct contributions.” 278 F. 3d, at 275. Judge Gregory dissented from the others on this point, since he saw no way to square their conclusion with this Court’s reasoning in National Right to Work. 278 F. 3d, at 282.

After the Fourth Circuit divided 7 to 4 in denying rehearing en banc, the FEC petitioned for certiorari solely as to the constitutionality of the ban on direct contributions. Because on that issue the Fourth Circuit is in conflict with the Sixth, see Kentucky Right to Life, Inc. v. Terry, 108 F. 3d 637, 645-646 (1997) (upholding a provision of Kentucky law analogous to §441b), we granted certiorari, 537 U. S. 1027 (2002). We now reverse.

II

A

Any attack on the federal prohibition of direct corporate political contributions goes against the current of a century of congressional efforts to curb corporations’ potentially “deleterious influences on federal elections,” which we have canvassed a number of times before. United States v. Automobile Workers, 352 U. S. 567, 585 (1957); see id., at 570-584; see also National Right to Work, 459 U. S., at 208-209; Pipe-fitters v. United States, 407 U. S. 385, 402-412 (1972); United States v. CIO, 335 U. S. 106, 113-115 (1948). The current law grew out of a “popular feeling” in the late 19th century “that aggregated capital unduly influenced politics, an influence not stopping short of corruption.” Automobile Workers, supra, at 570. A demand for congressional action gathered force in the campaign of 1904, which made a national issue of the political leverage exerted through corporate contributions, and after the election and new revelations of corporate political overreaching, President Theodore Roosevelt made banning corporate political contributions a legislative priority. R. Mutch, Campaigns, Congress, and Courts: The Making of Federal Campaign Finance Law 1-8 (1988); see Automobile Workers, 352 U. S., at 571-575. Although some congressional proposals would have “prohibited political contributions by [only] certain classes of corporations,” id., at 573, the momentum was “for elections ‘free from the power of money,’ ” id., at 575 (citation omitted), and Congress acted on the President’s call for an outright ban, not with half measures, but with the Tillman Act, ch. 420, 34 Stat. 864. This “first federal campaign finance law,” Mutch, supra, at xvii, banned “any corporation whatever” from making “a money contribution in connection with” federal elections, 34 Stat. 864-865.

Since 1907, there has been continual congressional attention to corporate political activity, sometimes resulting in refinement of the law, sometimes in overhaul. One feature, however, has stayed intact throughout this “careful legislative adjustment of the federal electoral laws,” National Right to Work, supra, at 209, and much of the periodic amendment was meant to strengthen the original, core prohibition on direct corporate contributions. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1925, for example, broadened the ban on contributions to include “anything of value,” and criminalized the act of receiving a contribution to match the criminality of making one. Ch. 368, §§302, 313, 43 Stat. 1070,1074. So, in another instance, the 1947 Labor Management Relations Act drew labor unions permanently within the law’s reach and invigorated the earlier prohibition to include “expenditure[s]” as well. Ch. 120, §304, 61 Stat. 159; see Pipefitters, supra, at 402.

Today, as in 1907, the law focuses on the “special characteristics of the corporate structure” that threaten the integrity of the political process. National Right to Work, 459 U. S., at 209; see id., at 207; see also Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U. S. 652, 658-659 (1990); Massachusetts Citizens for Life, 479 U. S., at 257-258; Federal Election Comm’n v. National Conservative Political Action Comm., 470 U. S. 480, 500-501 (1985). As we explained it in Austin,

“State law grants corporations special advantages — such as limited liability, perpetual life, and favorable treatment of the accumulation and distribution of assets— that enhance their ability to attract capital and to deploy their resources in ways that maximize the return on their shareholders’ investments. These state-created advantages not only allow corporations to play a dominant role in the Nation’s economy, but also permit them to use ‘resources amassed in the economic marketplace’ to obtain ‘an unfair advantage in the political marketplace.’ ” 494 U. S., at 658-659 (quoting Massachusetts Citizens for Life, supra, at 257).

Hence, the public interest in “restrict[ing] the influence of political war chests funneled through the corporate form.” National Conservative Political Action Comm., supra, at 500-501; see National Right to Work, supra, at 207 (“[Substantial aggregations of wealth amassed by the special advantages which go with the corporate form of organization should not be converted into political ‘war chests’ which could be used to incur political debts from legislators”).

As these excerpts from recent opinions show, not only has the original ban on direct corporate contributions endured, but so have the original rationales for the law. In barring corporate earnings from conversion into political “war chests,” the ban was and is intended to “preven[t] corruption or the appearance of corruption.” National Conservative Political Action Comm., supra, at 496-497; see also First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 788, n. 26 (1978) (“The importance of the governmental interest in preventing [corruption] has never been doubted”). But the ban has always done further duty in protecting “the individuals who have paid money into a corporation or union for purposes other than the support of candidates from having that money used to support political candidates to whom they may be opposed.” National Right to Work, supra, at 208; see CIO, 335 U. S., at 113; see also Austin, supra, at 673-678 (Brennan, J., concurring).

Quite aside from war-chest corruption and the interests of contributors and owners, however, another reason for regulating corporate electoral involvement has emerged with restrictions on individual contributions, and recent cases have recognized that restricting contributions by various organizations hedges against their use as conduits for “circumvention of [valid] contribution limits.” Federal Election Comm’n v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm., 533 U. S. 431, 456, and n. 18 (2001); see Austin, supra, at 664. To the degree that a corporation could contribute to political candidates, the individuals “who created it, who own it, or whom it employs,” Cedric Kushner Promotions, Ltd. v. King, 533 U. S. 158, 163 (2001), could exceed the bounds imposed on their own contributions by diverting money through the corporation, cf. Colorado Republican, 533 U. S., at 446-447. As we said on the subject of limiting coordinated expenditures by political parties, experience “demonstrates how candidates, donors, and parties test the limits of the current law, and it shows beyond serious doubt how contribution limits would be eroded if inducement to circumvent them were enhanced.” Id., at 457.

In sum, our cases on campaign finance regulation represent respect for the “legislative judgment that the special characteristics of the corporate structure require particularly careful regulation.” National Right to Work, supra, at 209-210. And we have understood that such deference to legislative choice is warranted particularly when Congress regulates campaign contributions, carrying as they do a plain threat to political integrity and a plain warrant to counter the appearance and reality of corruption and the misuse of corporate advantages. See, e. g., Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 26-28, 47 (1976) (per curiam). As we said in Colorado Republican, “limits on contributions are more clearly justified by a link to political corruption than limits on other kinds of . . . political spending are (corruption being understood not only as quid pro quo agreements, but also as undue influence on an officeholder’s judgment, and the appearance of such influence).” 533 U. S., at 440-441 (citation omitted).

B

That historical prologue would discourage any broadside attack on corporate campaign finance regulation or regulation of corporate contributions, and NCRL accordingly questions § 441b only to the extent the law places nonprofit advocacy corporations like itself under the general ban on direct contributions. But not even this more focused challenge can claim a blank slate, for . Judge Gregory rightly said in his dissent that our explanation in National Right to Work all but decided the issue against NCRL’s position.

National Right to Work addressed the provision of §441b restricting a nonstock corporation to its membership when soliciting contributions to its PAC, and we considered whether a nonprofit advocacy corporation without members of the usual sort could be held to violate the law by soliciting a donation to its PAC from any individual who had at one time contributed to the corporation. See 459 U. S., at 199-200. We sustained the FEC’s position that a fund drive as broad as this went beyond the solicitation of “members” permitted by § 441b, and we invoked the history distilled above in holding that the statutory restriction was no infringement on those First Amendment associational rights closely akin to speech. Id., at 206-209. We concluded that the congressional judgment to regulate corporate political involvement “warrants considerable deference” and “reflects a permissible assessment of the dangers posed by [corporations] to the electoral process.” Id., at 207-211.

It would be hard to read our conclusion in National Right to Work, that the PAC solicitation restrictions were constitutional, except on the practical understanding that the corporation’s capacity to make contributions was legitimately limited to indirect donations within the scope allowed to PACs. See, e. g., id., at 208 (reviewing both “the statutory prohibitions and exceptions”). In fact, we specifically rejected the argument made here, that deference to congressional judgments about proper limits on corporate contributions turns on details of corporate form or the affluence of particular corporations. In the same breath, we remarked on the broad applicability of §441b to “corporations and labor unions without great financial resources, as well as those more fortunately situated,” and made a point of refusing to “second-guess a legislative determination as to the need for prophylactic measures where corruption is the evil feared.” Id., at 210.

Later cases have repeatedly acknowledged, without questioning, the reading of National Right to Work as generally approving the §441b prohibition on direct contributions, even by nonprofit corporations “without great financial resources.” Ibid. In National Conservative Political Action Committee, for example, we not only spoke of National Right to Work as consistent with “the well-established constitutional validity of legislative regulation of corporate contributions to candidates for public office,” but went on to reaffirm that the Court in that case had “rightly concluded that Congress might include, along with labor unions and corporations traditionally prohibited from making contributions to political candidates, membership corporations, though contributions by the latter might not exhibit all of the evil that contributions by traditional economically organized corporations exhibit.” 470 U. S., at 495, 500; see id., at 500 (describing National Right to Work as giving “proper deference to a congressional determination of the need for a prophylactic rule”). Relying again on National Right to Work, we made a similar point in Austin when we sustained Michigan’s ban on direct corporate contributions, even though the ban “included] within its scope closely held corporations that do not possess vast reservoirs of capital.” 494 U. S., at 661. “Although. some closely held corporations, just as some publicly held ones, may not have accumulated significant amounts of wealth, they receive from the State the special benefits conferred by the corporate structure and present the potential for distorting the political process. This potential for distortion justifies [the state law’s] general applicability to all corporations.” Ibid.

But National Right to Work does not stand alone in its bearing on the issue here, and equal significance must be accorded to Massachusetts Citizens for Life, the very case upon which NCRL and the Court of Appeals have placed principal reliance. There, we held the prohibition on independent expenditures under §441b unconstitutional as applied to a nonprofit advocacy corporation. While the majority explained generally that the “potential for unfair deployment of wealth for political purposes” fell short of justifying a ban on expenditures by groups like Massachusetts Citizens for Life that “do not pose that danger of corruption,” the majority’s response to the dissent pointed to a different resolution of the present case. 479 U. S., at 259. The Chief Justice’s dissenting opinion noted that Massachusetts Citizens for Life “was not unlike” the corporation at issue in National Right to Work, which he read as supporting the ban on independent expenditures. 479 U. S., at 269. Without disagreeing about the similarity of the two organizations, the majority nonetheless distinguished National Right to Work on the ground of its addressing regulation of contributions, not expenditures. See 479 U. S., at 259-260 (“[R]estrictions on contributions require less compelling justification than restrictions on independent spending”). “In light of the historical role of contributions in the corruption of the electoral process, the need for a broad prophylactic rule [against contributions] was thus sufficient in [National Right to Work]” Id., at 260.

C

The upshot is that, although we have never squarely held against NCRL’s position here, we could not hold for it without recasting our understanding of the risks of harm posed by corporate political contributions, of the expressive significance of contributions, and of the consequent deference owed to legislative judgments on what to do about them. NCRL’s efforts, however, fail to unsettle existing law on any of these points.

First, NCRL argues that on a class-wide basis "[Massachusetts Citizens for Life]-type corporations pose no potential of threat to the political system,” so that the governmental interest in combating corruption is as weak as the Court held it to be in relation to the particular corporation considered in Massachusetts Citizens for Life. Brief for Respondents 19. But this generalization does not hold up. For present purposes, we will assume advocacy corporations are generally different from traditional business corporations in the improbability that contributions they might make would end up supporting causes that some of their members would not approve. See Massachusetts Citizens for Life, supra, at 260-262. But concern about the corrupting potential underlying the corporate ban may indeed be implicated by advocacy corporations. They, like their for-profit counterparts, benefit from significant “state-created advantages,” Austin, supra, at 659, and may well be able to amass substantial “political 'war chests,’ ” National Right to Work, 459 U. S., at 207. Not all corporations that qualify for favorable tax treatment under § 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code lack substantial resources, and the category covers some of the Nation’s most politically powerful organizations, including the AARP, the National Rifle Association, and the Sierra Club. Nonprofit advocacy corporations are, moreover, no less susceptible than traditional business companies to misuse as conduits for circumventing the contribution limits imposed on individuals. Cf. Austin, supra, at 664 (noting that a nonprofit corporation is capable of “serving] as a conduit for corporate political spending”).

Second, NCRL argues that application of the ban on its contributions should be subject to a strict level of scrutiny, on the ground that § 441b does not merely limit contributions, but bans them on the basis of their source. Brief for Respondents 14-16. This argument, however, overlooks the basic premise we have followed in setting First Amendment standards for reviewing political financial restrictions: the level of scrutiny is based on the importance of the “political activity at issue” to effective speech or political association. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, 479 U. S., at 259; see Colorado Republican, 533 U. S., at 440-442, and nn. 6-7; Nixon, 528 U. S., at 386-388. Going back to Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976), restrictions on political contributions have been treated as merely “marginal” speech restrictions subject to relatively complaisant review under the First Amendment, because contributions lie closer to the edges than to the core of political expression. See Colorado Republican, supra, at 440. “While contributions may result in political expression if spent by a candidate or an association ... , the transformation of contributions into political debate involves speech by someone other than the contributor.” Buckley, supra, at 20-21. This is the reason that instead of requiring contribution regulations to be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest, “a contribution limit involving ‘significant interference’ with associational rights” passes muster if it satisfies the lesser demand of being “ ‘closely drawn’ to match a ‘sufficiently important interest.’ ” Nixon, supra, at 387-388 (quoting Buckley, supra, at 25); cf. Austin, 494 U. S., at 657; Buckley, supra, at 44-45.

Indeed, this recognition that degree of scrutiny turns on the nature of the activity regulated is the only practical way to square two leading cases: National Right to Work approved strict solicitation limits on a PAC organized to make contributions, see 459 U. S., at 201-202, whereas Massachusetts Citizens for Life applied a compelling interest test to invalidate the ban on an advocacy corporation’s expenditures in light of PAC regulatory burdens, see 479 U. S., at 252-255; see also id., at 265-266 (opinion of O’Connor, J.). Each case involved §441b, after all, and the same “ban” on the same corporate “sources” of political activity applied in both cases.

It is not that the difference between a ban and a limit is to be ignored; it is just that the time to consider it is when applying scrutiny at the level selected, not in selecting the standard of review itself. But even when NCRL urges precisely that, and asserts that § 441b is not sufficiently “closely drawn,” the claim still rests on a false premise, for NCRL is simply wrong in characterizing §441b as a complete ban. As we have said before, the section “permits some participation of unions and corporations in the federal electoral process by allowing them to establish and pay the administrative expenses of [PACs].” National Right to Work, supra, at 201; see also Austin, supra, at 660; Massachusetts Citizens for Life, supra, at 252. The PAC option allows corporate political participation without the temptation to use corporate funds for political influence, quite possibly at odds with the sentiments of some shareholders or members, and it lets the Government regulate campaign activity through registration and disclosure, see §§432-434, without jeopardizing the associational rights of advocacy organizations’ members, see NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 462 (1958) (holding that “Compelled disclosure of membership in an organization engaged in advocacy of particular beliefs” may violate the First Amendment).

NCRL cannot prevail, then, simply by arguing that a ban on an advocacy corporation’s direct contributions is bad tailoring. NCRL would have to demonstrate that the law violated the First Amendment in allowing contributions to be made only through its PAC and subject to a PAC’s administrative burdens. But a unanimous Court in National Right to Work did not think the regulatory burdens on PACs, including restrictions on their ability to solicit funds, rendered a PAC unconstitutional as an advocacy corporation’s sole avenue for making political contributions. See 459 U. S., at 201-202. There is no reason to think the burden on advocacy corporations is any greater today, or to reach a different conclusion here.

III

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered.

Justice Kennedy,

concurring in the judgment.

My position, expressed in dissenting opinions in previous cases, has been that the Court erred in sustaining certain state and federal restrictions on political speech in the campaign finance context and misapprehended basic First Amendment principles in doing so. See Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U. S. 377, 409 (2000) (Kennedy, J., dissenting); Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U. S. 652, 699 (1990) (Kennedy, J., dissenting); Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm. v. Federal Election Comm’n, 518 U. S. 604, 626 (1996) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment and dissenting in part). I adhere to this view, and so can give no weight to those authorities in the instant case.

That said, it must be acknowledged that Federal Election Comm’n v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U. S. 238 (1986) (MCFL), contains language supporting the Court’s holding here that corporate contributions can be regulated more closely than corporate expenditures. The language upon which the Court relies tends to reconcile the tension between the approach in MCFL and the Court’s earlier decision in Federal Election Comm’n v. National Right to Work Comm., 459 U. S. 197 (1982).

Were we presented with a case in which the distinction between contributions and expenditures under the whole scheme of campaign finance regulation were under review, I might join Justice Thomas’ dissenting opinion. The Court does not undertake that comprehensive examination here, however. And since there is language in MCFL that supports today’s holding, I concur in the judgment.

Justice Thomas,

with whom Justice Scalia joins, dissenting.

I continue to believe that campaign finance laws are subject to strict scrutiny. Federal Election Comm’n v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm., 533 U. S. 431, 465-466 (2001) (Colorado II) (Thomas, J., dissenting); Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm. v. Federal Election Comm’n, 518 U. S. 604, 640 (1996) (Colorado I) (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment and dissenting in part). See also Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U. S. 377, 427 (2000) (Thomas, J., dissenting). As in Colorado II, the Government does not argue here that 2 U. S. C. §441b survives review under that rigorous standard. Indeed, it could not. “[U]nder traditional strict scrutiny, broad prophylactic caps on ... giving in the political process . . . are unconstitutional,” Colorado 1, 518 U. S., at 640-641, because, as I have explained before, they are not narrowly tailored to meet any relevant compelling state interest, id., at 641-644; Nixon, supra, at 427-430. See also Colorado II, supra, at 465-466. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals and respectfully dissent from the Court’s contrary disposition.

       Section 501(c)(4)(A) grants exemption to “[cjivic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare,... the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes.” An organization “may carry on lawful political activities and remain exempt under section 501(c)(4) as long as it is primarily engaged in activities that promote social welfare.” Rev. Rui. 81-95,1981-1 Cum. Bull. 332. Unlike contributions to § 501(c)(3) organizations, donations to those recognized under § 501(c)(4) are not tax deductible. See Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Wash, 461 U. S. 540, 543 (1983).

       We thus have no occasion to say whether the Court of Appeals correctly held NCRL entitled to the so-called “Massachusetts Citizens for Life exception” to the statute’s ban on independent expenditures.

       See, e. g., Act of June 25, 1910, ch. 392, 36 Stat. 822; Act of Aug. 19, 1911, ch. 33, 37 Stat. 25; Federal Corrupt Practices Act, 1925, ch. 368, 43 Stat. 1070; Act of July 19, 1940 (Hatch Act), 54 Stat. 767; War Labor Disputes Act, 1943, ch. 144, § 9, 57 Stat. 167; Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, §304,61 Stat. 159; Act of Oct. 31, 1951, §21,65 Stat. 718; Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA), 86 Stat. 3; FECA Amendments of 1974, 88 Stat. 1263; FECA Amendments of 1976, 90 Stat. 475; FECA Amendments of 1979, 93 Stat. 1339; Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, 116 Stat. 81.

       Section 441b(b)(4)(A) bars a corporation from soliciting contributions to a PAC established by the corporation, except from stockholders or other specified categories of persons. Section 441b(b)(4)(C), the specific provision at issue in National Right to Work, provides, in relevant part, that § 441b(b)(4)(A) “shall not prevent a . . . corporation without capital stock ... from soliciting contributions to [a PAC established by the corporation] from members of such .. . corporation.”

       That said, this concern is not wholly inapplicable to advocacy corporations, as “persons may desire that an organization use their contributions to further a certain cause, but may not want the organization to use their money to urge support for or opposition to political candidates solely on the basis of that cause.” Massachusetts Citizens for Life, 479 U. S., at 261. In any event, we have never intimated that the risk of corruption alone is insufficient to support regulation of political contributions. See, e. g., Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U. S. 652, 658-659 (1990); Federal Election Comm’n v. National Right to Work Comm., 459 U. S. 197, 208 (1982); cf. Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U. S. 377, 388-389 (2000).

       See http://www.aarp.org/press/disclosure.html (as visited June 12, 2003) (available in Clerk of Court’s case file) (AARP); http://www.give.org/ reports/index.asp (as visited June 12, 2003) (available in Clerk of Court’s case file) (National Rifle Association and Sierra Club). These examples answer NCRL’s argument that the Massachusetts Citizens for Life exception is “self-limiting.” See Brief for Respondents 27 (“If [a Massachusetts Citizens for Life}-type corporation begins generating or receiving substantial business income or business corporation contributions, by definition, it automatically is no longer [a Massachusetts Citizens for Life]- type corporation” (citing Federal Election Comm'n v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U. S. 238, 263-264 (1986))). The nonprofit advocacy corporations mentioned (one of which has, in fact, been granted "[Massachusetts Citizens for Life]-type” status by a Court of Appeals, see, e. g., FEC v. National Rifle Assn., 254 F. 3d 173, 192 (CADC 2001)) show that “political “war chests’ ” may be amassed simply from members’ contributions. 459 U. S., at 207.

       NCRL suggests that the Government’s interest in combating circumvention of the campaign finance laws would be sufficiently met by allowing limited contributions subject to the earmarking rule of §441a(a)(8), which provides that “contributions which are in any way earmarked or otherwise directed through an intermediate or conduit to [a] candidate” are treated as contributions to the candidate (thus triggering the disclosure requirements of § 434(b)(3)(A)). Brief for Respondents 31. We rejected this precise argument, however, in Federal Election Comm’n v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm., 533 U. S. 431 (2001), where we concluded that it “ignores the practical difficulty of identifying and directly combating circumvention under actual political conditions.” Id., at 462. “The earmarking provision... would reach only the most clumsy attempts to pass contributions through to candidates. To treat the earmarking provision as the outer limit of acceptable tailoring would disarm any serious effort to limit [circumvention].” Ibid.

       Within the realm of contributions generally, corporate contributions are furthest from the core of political expression, since corporations’ First Amendment speech and association interests are derived largely from those of their members, see, e. g., NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 458-459 (1958), and of the public in receiving information, see, e. g., First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 777 (1978). A ban on direct corporate contributions leaves individual members of corporations free to make their own contributions, and deprives the public of little or no material information.

       Judicial deference is particularly warranted where, as here, we deal with a congressional judgment that has remained essentially unchanged throughout a century of “careful legislative adjustment.” National Right to Work, supra, at 209; cf. Nixon, supra, at 391 (“The quantum of empirical evidence needed to satisfy heightened judicial scrutiny of legislative judgments will vary up or down with the novelty and plausibility of the justification raised”).