ABSTRACT
Corporate "speech" is a protected form of expression under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. States and the federal government have developed a bewildering number of corporate forms to enhance the economic performance of businesses, to facilitate legal transactions, and to promote and regulate social and political action and advocacy. Corporate speech is of two general types: commercial and noncommercial. Noncommercial speech is corporate expression that falls outside the Court's narrow definition of commercial speech and includes speech on topics of current public concern. Governments are justified, therefore, in regulating contributions to political campaigns because inordinate individual or corporate financing of a political campaign creates the danger or appearance of a quid pro quo relationship between the politician and the donor. The Austin opinion noted that the Bellotti decision held open the possibility that corporate speech might be regulated more closely than individual speech if a compelling governmental interest in treating it differently could be shown.
