Justice Stevens, concurring.

    Justice Kennedy suggests that the misuse of soft money tolerated by this Court’s misguided decision in Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm. v. Federal Election Comm’n, 518 U.S. 604 (1996), demonstrates the need for a fresh examination of the constitutional issues raised by Congress’ enactment of the Federal Election Campaign Acts... In response to his call for a new beginning, therefore, I make one simple point. Money is property; it is not speech.

    Speech has the power to inspire volunteers to perform a multitude of tasks on a campaign trail, on a battleground, or even on a football field. Money, meanwhile, has the power to pay hired laborers to perform the same tasks. It does not follow, however, that the First Amendment provides the same measure of protection to the use of money to accomplish such goals as it provides to the use of ideas to achieve the same results.

    Our Constitution and our heritage properly protect the individual’s interest in making decisions about the use of his or her own property. Governmental regulation of such decisions can sometimes be viewed either as “deprivations of liberty” or as “deprivations of property,” ...

    Reliance on the First Amendment to justify the invalidation of campaign finance regulations is the functional equivalent of the Court’s candid reliance on the doctrine of substantive due process as articulated in the two prevailing opinions in Moore v. East Cleveland. The right to use one’s own money to hire gladiators, or to fund “speech by proxy,” certainly merits significant constitutional protection. These property rights, however, are not entitled to the same protection as the right to say what one pleases.