Citizens United and the Issue of Shareholder Protection

Over at the Glom, Usha Rodrigues opines that:

The shareholder protection rationale has real traction in the public company context, and I find Kennedy's reliance on the protections of shareholder democracy laughable ....

Meanwhile, Larry Ribstein feels that:

the shareholder protection rationale for corporate speech restrictions ... ignores the powerful market forces that discipline the terms of state corporation laws.

Personally, I don't think shareholder protection constitutes an independent compelling interest justifying the regulation of speech.  But when one combines shareholder protection concerns with antidistortion and anticorruption concerns--a compelling interest arguably begins to emerge.

SJP