In overturning a Montana law that blatantly violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday reaffirmed the obvious: states cannot infringe upon the free speech rights of Americans.

Montana passed a law last year stating that a “corporation may not make . . . an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political committee that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party.” The court's beautifully simple response was to quote from its own 2010 Citizens United ruling, to which the Montana law was an overreaction: “political speech does not lose First Amendment protection simply because its source is a corporation.”

Short and sweet — and all that was necessary. The court was absolutely correct in 2010 and on Monday that the state may not negate citizens' First Amendment rights when those citizens speak jointly. We have free speech rights individually, and we do not lose those rights when we get together to speak collectively. That is hardly surprising or chilling. What is chilling is that so many Americans are so eager to use the power of the state to silence people with whom they disagree.