Hillarysworld

Sanders · Diamond

"Supreme Court Removes Limits on Corporate, Labor Donations to Campaigns" (FOX News 1/21/10) Trigger: Hillary Movie...

Sanders · Diamond

"Supreme Court Removes Limits on Corporate, Labor Donations to Campaigns" (FOX News 1/21/10) Reg. Hillary Movie...

Sanders · Diamond

(Emphasis added)

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American politics

Freedom to spend

The Supreme Court rules that businesses and unions may fund political messages in elections

Jan 21st 2010 | WASHINGTON, DC
From Economist.com

Shutterstock

BY THE narrowest of majorities, America's Supreme Court ruled on Thursday January 21st that Congress may not bar corporations and unions from paying to disseminate political messages at election time. The ruling is arguably a blow for free speech, although critics of the decision quickly concluded that it would lead to big business buying elections.

The case concerned “Hillary: The Movie”, a 90-minute documentary which portrays Hillary Clinton as a power-crazed gorgon. It is a dreary and unbalanced piece of hack work, but clearly protected by the Constitution. “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech,” says the First Amendment. Not “thoughtful, judicious speech”. Just “speech”. Yet the makers of “Hillary: The Movie” were forced to drop plans to distribute their work via cable for fear of being fined or jailed.

The Federal Election Commission ruled that the film was an attack ad, not a documentary, and therefore subject to America’s confusing mess of campaign-finance restrictions. The conservative group that made it, Citizens United, wanted to release it during the Democratic primaries in 2008. Under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as McCain-Feingold after its sponsors in the Senate, that was not allowed.

Among other things, McCain-Feingold forbids corporations or unions from paying to broadcast electioneering messages about candidates within 30 days of a primary or 60 days before a general election. Citizens United is a non-profit group mostly funded by individuals, but since it also accepted donations from private firms, it was muzzled.

Advocates of such curbs argue that if corporations can spend freely at election time, their deep pockets will give them undue influence and corrupt the political process. In a furious dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens declared that the ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation”.

Until today, firms that wanted to express political views near election time had to form a political action committee (PAC), clear many regulatory hurdles and accept only limited amounts of money from each donor. Fans of McCain-Feingold denied that this chilled free speech. But the court’s majority, led by Justice Anthony Kennedy, disagreed.

The rules are so confusing that even experts struggle to follow them. Senator John McCain, who co-wrote the bill, was accused of a serious violation of it during his presidential campaign in 2008. Big firms with expensive lawyers can usually navigate the system, but small players flounder. In the states, campaign-finance laws have been used to stifle debate. Prosecutors in Washington state claimed that favourable radio coverage of an anti-tax campaign was a “donation” that the campaigners should have disclosed. In Colorado, a group of homeowners protesting against plans to incorporate their neighbourhood into a nearby town were sued for not registering as a PAC. Both groups won, but they needed lawyers.

The effect of the law, said Justice Kennedy, is that “a speaker who wants to avoid threats of criminal liability…must ask a governmental agency for prior permission to speak.” That, he said, was “analogous to licensing laws implemented in 16th- and 17th-century England” which is precisely the sort of thing that “the First Amendment was drawn to prohibit”.

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What this boils down to is that McCain-Feingold was not well crafted. I am going to try to look up the judgment to see if there is any further insight that can be gained. Hopefully McCain-Feingold revise the law to not fall into the same trap.. but seeing that this is about the First Amendment right (of the corporations!) I wonder what else can be done. It is bothersome.. :(

Sanders · Diamond

(Emphasis added)

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A Death Blow to McCain-Feingold

The Supreme Court has struck down onerous restrictions on free speech mandated by the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

January 21, 2010 - by Clarice Feldman

In a not wholly unanticipated move, the Supreme Court invalidated a key portion of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCFRA), also known as McCain-Feingold.

The decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was split. The majority opinion was written by Judge Anthony Kennedy, and the dissenting opinion was written by Judge John Paul Stevens (who is widely believed to be retiring after the present term). He was joined in dissent by Justices Sotomayor, Breyer, and Ginsburg. (The full text of the opinion can be found here.)

Like many cases of legislatively mandated restrictions on constitutional rights, BCFR was wrapped in the mantle of high-minded concerns for good government. Largely hyped in secret by the Pew Charitable Trusts and also by the usual media civic advancement poseurs, it was an effort to eliminate “soft money” in campaign financing; limit issue advocacy ads within 30 days of an election (when such speech would be most effective); and prohibit campaign ads paid for by corporations — including non-profit issue organizations — and unincorporated entities using any corporate or union funds.

It is far from clear that the legislation prohibiting such ads and expenditures proved any barrier to the creative campaign and special interest professionals, who certainly seem far more clever than the legislative branch at finding ways around such things. But it is clear that the Act posed substantial limits on the exercise of free speech when it is most valuable to both citizens and the notion of good government — namely, election time.

History of Supreme Court Treatment of the BCFRA

There was no way of avoiding the obvious restrictions on free speech imposed by the Act, though neither the sponsoring senators nor their colleagues seemed to understand or care. And President Bush clearly thought the worst portions of the Act would be struck down by the Supreme Court — although when he signed it, he expressed “reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising.”

Led by then-Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, a group of plaintiffs challenged the Act, arguing that, on its face, it violated the First Amendment. Surprisingly, the Court rejected this “facial challenge” (that is, one based only on the clear language of the Act rather than one based on a dispute under it). In McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93, the Supreme Court upheld much of the legislation, determining that their decision was required by Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 US 652.

Today the Court held that the rule prohibiting corporations and unions from using general funds to make independent expenditures for “electioneering determinations,” or from using speech advocating the election or defeat of a candidate (2 U.S.C. Sec 441 b), constitutes an ongoing prior restraint of free speech which must be invalidated. The Court thereby overruled the Austin decision, as well as the portions of the McConnell decision upholding the extension of the Section 441b restrictions on independent corporate expenditures.

The Court held that these restrictions constitute a ban on free speech backed by criminal sanctions, and that the Constitution bars permitting speech by preferred speakers while disfavoring speech by other, less favored, speakers. Deciding that Austin was poorly reasoned, the Court ruled it would not accord it further precedential value. (The case only involved a corporation, but the language of the opinion and logic suggest that it applies equally to the use of union funds.)

So, why the Court shift?

For non-lawyers, the Court’s changed stance might seem puzzling. However, it follows a line of reasoning which suggests the Court should always defer to the legislature, and should not prematurely assume constitutional infirmities until the facts make them clear, or if there appears to be no way the words can be applied in accord with the Constitution.

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SCOTUS decision is understandable.. but what is the real solution? How to restore some balance in this?

I wonder if our founders foresaw that corporations can really tip the scale against citizens' interests in exercise of free speech, for their own gains.

Sanders · Diamond

JANUARY 22, 2010

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Court Kills Limits on Corporate Politicking

By JESS BRAVIN

Bloomberg

The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON—A divided Supreme Court struck down decades-old limits on corporate political expenditures, potentially reshaping the 2010 election landscape by permitting businesses and unions to spend freely on commercials for or against candidates.

President Barack Obama attacked the ruling and said it gave "a green light to a new stampede of special-interest money in our politics," particularly "big oil, Wall Street banks, health-insurance companies and the other powerful interests" that "drown out the voices of everyday Americans." He pledged to work with lawmakers to craft a "forceful response."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who has long fought campaign-finance regulations, hailed the court for a "monumental decision" toward "restoring the First Amendment rights of [corporations and unions] by ruling that the Constitution protects their right to express themselves about political candidates and issues up until Election Day."

Some company executives and unions said they were ready to jump more directly into this year's congressional campaigns under the new rules, but big companies may remain cautious about doing so for public-relations reasons.

The ruling, which overturned two precedents, underscored the impact of former President George W. Bush's two appointments to the court. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito joined the five-justice majority that struck down not only a provision of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance act limiting corporate-funded political ads immediately before federal elections, but also federal laws dating to 1947, and state laws that were older still. Those earlier laws restricted corporations from directly funding political activity from their general treasuries.

Federal law aimed to rein in independent campaign spending by corporations and unions—advertisements these groups buy to advocate for or against a candidate. They had to channel campaign spending through a special fund, or political action committee, which can accept donations from employees, shareholders and other affiliates. The federal rules applied equally to corporations and unions, although some state laws may treat them differently.

Critics contended that corporations and unions continued to spend general funds on electioneering through ads masquerading as commentary on public issues that implicitly urged a particular candidate's election or defeat. McCain-Feingold aimed to plug that purported loophole by restricting those ads in the weeks before a federal election.

But Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority in a 57-page opinion, said the effort to divide corporate political spending into legal and illegal forms chilled political speech.

"When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought," he wrote.

Justice Kennedy wrote that, taken to its extreme, the restriction on corporate spending could silence media organizations or even allow banning such political-themed movies as "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

He rejected the view that government had an interest in preventing corporations or unions from "distorting" political debate by funding ads. To the contrary, "corporations may possess valuable expertise, leaving them the best equipped to point out errors of fallacies in speech of all sorts," he wrote.

The court did reach broad agreement on one point, finding that the McCain-Feingold provision requiring political messages to disclose their funder was constitutional. Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from that holding. He cited reports that backers of a 2008 California measure abolishing same-sex marriage, Proposition 8, were harassed by their opponents.

The decision also left standing the federal ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates, enacted in 1907. Justice Kennedy cited earlier rulings justifying that ban as a measure to prevent corruption.

In contrast, he wrote, "limits on independent expenditures…have a chilling effect extending well beyond the government's interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption," he wrote.

The decision voids a key provision of the signature legislative achievement of Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee who worked with Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to draft the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that informally carries their names. Sen. McCain said he was "disappointed" but noted that other parts of the bill remained intact.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens—part of the majority in the two previous opinions that were overruled—called the majority opinion "a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have…fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt." To underscore his distress, Justice Stevens took the unusual step of reading much of his 90-page dissent from the bench.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent, which accused the majority of seizing on a minor case dealing with the application of McCain-Feingold to upend a long history of statutes and judicial opinions.

The majority's rationale "comes down to nothing more than its disagreement" with precedent, Justice Stevens wrote, and its opinion "is essentially an amalgamation of resuscitated dissents" from those cases.

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Great summary article.

The picture of the supreme court is awe inspiring.

-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 22nd of January 2010 01:03:21 AM

Alex · Diamond

No wonder the "Supreme Court" wouldn't look at Barack's ineligibility - they don't care! Their concern is with those who installed him in office.

Sanders · Diamond

This article from AP shows reaction from across the political spectrum is consistently unfavorable to the SCOTUS ruling... interestingly even from the POTUS. The only favorable voice seems to be from the Chief Justice and from business special interest groups. Worth reading in full. I dont understand "Citizens United" being favorable to this.

SALON.COM

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Reaction: Supreme Court's campaign finance ruling

By The Associated Press

Reaction to the Supreme Court decision Thursday that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress.

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"With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans. ... We are going to talk with bipartisan congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision." -- President Barack Obama.

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"The text and purpose of the First Amendment point in the same direction: Congress may not prohibit political speech, even if the speaker is a corporation or union." -- Chief Justice John Roberts

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"The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation." -- Justice John Paul Stevens, in the dissent.

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"Speech about our government and candidates for elective office lies at the heart of the First Amendment, and the court's decision vindicates the right of individuals to engage in core political speech by banding together to make their voices heard." -- Theodore Olson, who argued the case for Citizens United.

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"Presented with a relatively narrow legal issue, the Supreme Court chose to roll back laws that have limited the role of corporate money in federal elections since Teddy Roosevelt was president. Ignoring important principles of judicial restraint and respect for precedent, the court has given corporate money a breathtaking new role in federal campaigns." -- Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.

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"I am disappointed by the decision of the Supreme Court and the lifting of the limits on corporate and union contributions." Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

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"There is clear reason for ordinary citizens to be concerned that this divisive ruling will, in reality, allow powerful corporations to drown out the voices of everyday Americans in future campaigns. This ruling is no doubt yet another victory for Wall Street at the expense of Main Street America." -- Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

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"With today's monumental decision, the Supreme Court took an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights of these groups by ruling that the Constitution protects their right to express themselves about political candidates and issues up until Election Day." -- Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

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"We will open the floodgate, if left unchecked and unchallenged, to more and more special interest money, big corporation money. ... This takes us in the exact opposite direction from where America wants to go." -- Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

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"I think the Supreme Court decisions today are a big win for the First Amendment and a step in the right direction." -- House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.

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"The Supreme Court in essence has ruled that corporations can buy elections. If that happens, democracy in America is over. We cannot put the law up for sale and award government to the highest bidder." -- Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla.

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"Today's ruling protects the First Amendment rights of organizations across the political spectrum, and is a positive for the political process and free enterprise." -- Robin Conrad of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce National Chamber Litigation Center.

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"This decision allows Wall Street to tap its vast corporate profits to drown out the voice of the public in our democracy." -- Bob Edgar, president of government watchdog group Common Cause.

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"The Supreme Court's ruling frees American business from the yoke of second-class citizenship. ... The reason American business is active in politics in the first place is to influence public policies that impact the prosperity of its employees and shareholders." -- Gregory Casey, president and CEO of the Business and Industry Political Action Committee.

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"The decision will unleash unprecedented amounts of corporate "influence-seeking" money on our elections and create unprecedented opportunities for corporate 'influence-buying' corruption." -- Fred Wertheimer, president of watchdog group Democracy 21.

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"If you are a 'corporate person' (aka a CEO or corporate official), you are now free to hit the corporate ATM and spend whatever of your shareholders' money it takes to elect the candidates of your choice." -- Anna Burger, chair of the Change to Win labor federation

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"Today's decision so imperils our democratic well-being, and so severely distorts the rightful purpose of the First Amendment, that a constitutional corrective is demanded." -- Robert Weissman, president of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

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"It is clear that the Court's opinion will allow a tidal wave of money to potentially cripple an already swamped and warped political system." -- Ellen Miller, executive director and co-founder of the open-government group the Sunlight Foundation.

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-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 22nd of January 2010 09:59:00 AM

Sanders · Diamond

(Emphasis added)

Editorial

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The Court’s Blow to Democracy

Published: January 21, 2010

With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century. Disingenuously waving the flag of the First Amendment, the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.

Congress must act immediately to limit the damage of this radical decision, which strikes at the heart of democracy.

As a result of Thursday’s ruling, corporations have been unleashed from the longstanding ban against their spending directly on political campaigns and will be free to spend as much money as they want to elect and defeat candidates. If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.

The ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission radically reverses well-established law and erodes a wall that has stood for a century between corporations and electoral politics. (The ruling also frees up labor unions to spend, though they have far less money at their disposal.)

The founders of this nation warned about the dangers of corporate influence. The Constitution they wrote mentions many things and assigns them rights and protections — the people, militias, the press, religions. But it does not mention corporations.

In 1907, as corporations reached new heights of wealth and power, Congress made its views of the relationship between corporations and campaigning clear: It banned them from contributing to candidates. At midcentury, it enacted the broader ban on spending that was repeatedly reaffirmed over the decades until it was struck down on Thursday.

This issue should never have been before the court. The justices overreached and seized on a case involving a narrower, technical question involving the broadcast of a movie that attacked Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2008 campaign. The court elevated that case to a forum for striking down the entire ban on corporate spending and then rushed the process of hearing the case at breakneck speed. It gave lawyers a month to prepare briefs on an issue of enormous complexity, and it scheduled arguments during its vacation.

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., no doubt aware of how sharply these actions clash with his confirmation-time vow to be judicially modest and simply “call balls and strikes,” wrote a separate opinion trying to excuse the shameless judicial overreaching.

The majority is deeply wrong on the law. Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights. It is an odd claim since companies are creations of the state that exist to make money. They are given special privileges, including different tax rates, to do just that. It was a fundamental misreading of the Constitution to say that these artificial legal constructs have the same right to spend money on politics as ordinary Americans have to speak out in support of a candidate.

The majority also makes the nonsensical claim that, unlike campaign contributions, which are still prohibited, independent expenditures by corporations “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” If Wall Street bankers told members of Congress that they would spend millions of dollars to defeat anyone who opposed their bailout, and then did so, it would certainly look corrupt.

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I agree with NY Times. It is a terrible thing the SCOTUS did to Democracy.

I was glad to see that Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissenting voice (Ref: Thursday’s ruling) but I am frankly very surprised by Justice Roberts in the majority on this.

On its central point, Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr.,, Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Justice Stevens’s dissent was joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

So who do we take this to if we everyone and their brother and sister agree that the SCOTUS majority is deeply wrong on the law? Back to the drawing board legislators McCain and Feingold!

-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 22nd of January 2010 02:17:10 PM

Sanders · Diamond

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Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit

By ADAM LIPTAK

Published: January 21, 2010

WASHINGTON — Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.

Reuters, left; Bloomberg

Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and John Paul Stevens, right.

The 5-to-4 decision was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said that allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace would corrupt democracy.

The ruling represented a sharp doctrinal shift, and it will have major political and practical consequences. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision to reshape the way elections were conducted. Though the decision does not directly address them, its logic also applies to the labor unions that are often at political odds with big business.

The decision will be felt most immediately in the coming midterm elections, given that it comes just two days after Democrats lost a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and as popular discontent over government bailouts and corporate bonuses continues to boil.

President Obama called it “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

The justices in the majority brushed aside warnings about what might follow from their ruling in favor of a formal but fervent embrace of a broad interpretation of free speech rights.

“If the First Amendment has any force,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, which included the four members of the court’s conservative wing, “it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”

The ruling, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205, overruled two precedents: Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a 1990 decision that upheld restrictions on corporate spending to support or oppose political candidates, and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, a 2003 decision that upheld the part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that restricted campaign spending by corporations and unions.

The 2002 law, usually called McCain-Feingold, banned the broadcast, cable or satellite transmission of “electioneering communications” paid for by corporations or labor unions from their general funds in the 30 days before a presidential primary and in the 60 days before the general elections.

The law, as narrowed by a 2007 Supreme Court decision, applied to communications “susceptible to no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.”

The five opinions in Thursday’s decision ran to more than 180 pages, with Justice John Paul Stevens contributing a passionate 90-page dissent. In sometimes halting fashion, he summarized it for some 20 minutes from the bench on Thursday morning.

Joined by the other three members of the court’s liberal wing, Justice Stevens said the majority had committed a grave error in treating corporate speech the same as that of human beings.

Eight of the justices did agree that Congress can require corporations to disclose their spending and to run disclaimers with their advertisements, at least in the absence of proof of threats or reprisals. “Disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way,” Justice Kennedy wrote. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented on this point.

The majority opinion did not disturb bans on direct contributions to candidates, but the two sides disagreed about whether independent expenditures came close to amounting to the same thing.

“The difference between selling a vote and selling access is a matter of degree, not kind,” Justice Stevens wrote. “And selling access is not qualitatively different from giving special preference to those who spent money on one’s behalf.”

Justice Kennedy responded that “by definition, an independent expenditure is political speech presented to the electorate that is not coordinated with a candidate.”

The case had unlikely origins. It involved a documentary called “Hillary: The Movie,” a 90-minute stew of caustic political commentary and advocacy journalism. It was produced by Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit corporation, and was released during the Democratic presidential primaries in 2008.

Citizens United lost a suit that year against the Federal Election Commission, and scuttled plans to show the film on a cable video-on-demand service and to broadcast television advertisements for it. But the film was shown in theaters in six cities, and it remains available on DVD and the Internet.

The majority cited a score of decisions recognizing the First Amendment rights of corporations, and Justice Stevens acknowledged that “we have long since held that corporations are covered by the First Amendment.”

But Justice Stevens defended the restrictions struck down on Thursday as modest and sensible. Even before the decision, he said, corporations could act through their political action committees or outside the specified time windows.

The McCain-Feingold law contains an exception for broadcast news reports, commentaries and editorials. But that is, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in a concurrence joined by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., “simply a matter of legislative grace.”

Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion said that there was no principled way to distinguish between media corporations and other corporations and that the dissent’s theory would allow Congress to suppress political speech in newspapers, on television news programs, in books and on blogs.

Justice Stevens responded that people who invest in media corporations know “that media outlets may seek to influence elections.” He added in a footnote that lawmakers might now want to consider requiring corporations to disclose how they intended to spend shareholders’ money or to put such spending to a shareholder vote.

On its central point, Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Justice Stevens’s dissent was joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

When the case was first argued last March, it seemed a curiosity likely to be decided on narrow grounds. The court could have ruled that Citizens United was not the sort of group to which the McCain-Feingold law was meant to apply, or that the law did not mean to address 90-minute documentaries, or that video-on-demand technologies were not regulated by the law. Thursday’s decision rejected those alternatives.

Instead, it addressed the questions it proposed to the parties in June when it set down the case for an unusual second argument in September, those of whether Austin and McConnell should be overruled. The answer, the court ruled Thursday, was yes.

“When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought,” Justice Kennedy wrote. “This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.” (Emphasis added)

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This is a mega Public interest item. We have to understand this ruling and its many implications.

The SCOTUS forgets the enormous inequity in the ability of corporations to influence public opinion. Market research shows that an advertisment well made and thrust upon public many times literally brainwashes the unguarded. This is a factor that is not considered in the statement.

“When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought,” Justice Kennedy wrote. “This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”

The fundamental tenet of democracy is informed ballot. I would want it no other way. But I do not want to see undue influence from corporations. I feel that the small prohibition window near the election date that McCain-Feingold had instituted is indeed in the best interest of the electorate. There is plenty of provision there for messaging on issues that non-profits bring to the citizens. That is not the thing in question... rather can distortions and posturing be allowed in political advertising or movies made for screen that are supposedly based on facts, but are full of subscripts or strewn together out of context items are pushed on the milieu. when it is time for us to digest the mess handed to us by corporate interests -- at the 11th hour -- will the SCOTUS come to educate the masses?

The decision was very wrong. So frustrating.

Sanders · Diamond

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Court rolls back campaign-spending limits

By The Associated Press
01.21.10

WASHINGTON — A major ruling today by the U.S. Supreme Court could change how presidential and congressional campaigns are funded, possibly opening the floodgates of money from corporations, labor unions and other groups.

By a 5-4 vote, the Court overturned Austin v. Michigan (1980) and part of McConnell v. FEC, (2003) as well as the decades-old law that said companies and labor unions can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads. The decision threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

Today’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC is a blow to activists who have tried to limit the role of special interests in American politics. Critics of the stricter limits imposed by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 on “electioneering communications” have argued that they amount to an unconstitutional restraint of free speech and the Court majority agreed.

"The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion, joined by his four more conservative colleagues — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

The decision leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions. That provision was not challenged by Citizens United.

The Court threw out the 63-year-old law designed to restrain the influence of big business and unions on elections, ruling that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress. The decision could drastically alter who gives and gets hundreds of millions of dollars in this November's crucial congressional elections.

Strongly disagreeing, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his dissent: "The Court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the Nation." At the end of his dissent, Stevens warned that “the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government from the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.”

Other justices in the Court's liberal wing, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, joined Stevens' dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom.

The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.

Advocates of strong campaign-finance regulations have predicted that a high court ruling against the limits would lead to a flood of corporate and union money in federal campaigns as early as this year's congressional elections.

President Barack Obama criticized the majority’s opinion, saying: “With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans."

Obama added: “We are going to talk with bipartisan congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision."

The Citizens United opinion goes to the heart of laws dating back to the Gilded Age when Congress passed the Tillman Act in 1907 banning corporations from donating money directly to federal candidates. Though that prohibition still stands, the same can't be said for much of the century-long effort that followed to separate politics from corporate money.

The decision's most immediate effect is to permit corporate and union-sponsored political ads to run right up to the moment of an election, and to allow them to call for the election or defeat of a candidate. In presidential elections and in highly contested congressional contests, that could mean a dramatic increase in television advertising competing for time and public attention.

In the long term, corporations, their industry associations and labor unions are now free to tap their treasuries to assist candidates, although the spending may not be coordinated with the candidates.

"It's going to be the Wild, Wild West," said Ben Ginsberg, a Republican attorney who has represented several presidential campaigns. "If corporations and unions can give unlimited amounts ... it means that the public debate is significantly changed with a lot more voices and it means that the loudest voices are going to be corporations and unions."

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader who filed the first lawsuit challenging the McCain-Feingold law, praised the Court for "restoring the First Amendment rights" of corporations and unions. "By previously denying this right, the government was picking winners and losers," McConnell said.

Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas joined Kennedy to form the majority in the main part of the case.

Roberts, in a separate opinion, said that upholding the limits would have restrained "the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy."

Kennedy wrote: "No sufficient government interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations." He repeatedly emphasized that the First Amendment protects speakers and speech and warned about laws that treat speakers differently. “We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the Government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers.”

Stevens, in a 90-page opinion that dwarfed Kennedy's, complained that the Court majority overreached by throwing out earlier Supreme Court decisions that had not been at issue when this case first came to the Court.

"Essentially, five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law," Stevens said.

The case began when a conservative group, Citizens United, made a 90-minute movie that was very critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton as she sought the Democratic presidential nomination. Citizens United wanted to air ads for the anti-Clinton movie and distribute it through video-on-demand services on local cable systems during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign.

But federal courts said the movie looked and sounded like a long campaign ad, and therefore should be regulated like one.

The movie was advertised on the Internet, sold on DVD and shown in a few theaters. Campaign regulations do not apply to DVDs, theaters or the Internet.

The Court first heard arguments in March, then asked for another round of arguments about whether corporations and unions should be treated differently from individuals when it comes to campaign spending.

The justices convened in a special argument session in September, Sotomayor's first. The conservative justices gave every indication then that they were prepared to take the steps they did today.

The justices, with only Thomas in dissent, did uphold McCain-Feingold requirements that anyone spending money on political ads must disclose the names of contributors.

Thomas wrote that the majority’s “constitutional analysis does not go far enough” and said that current law infringes on the right to anonymous speech. (Emphasis added)

The justices filed five separate opinions totaling 176 pages.

"

Source link

===================================================

I had not realized that current law infringed on right to anonymous speech. So, does this negate that and restore the right? I hope so.

-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 22nd of January 2010 08:04:42 PM

Sanders · Diamond

2009-10 Supreme Court case tracker
By First Amendment Center Online staff

Case	Lower court	Cert. granted	Oral arguments scheduled	Ruling	Vote
Citizens United v. FEC	U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia	Nov. 14, 2008 (technically, jurisdiction noted) News Analysis	March 24, 2009 News Analysis Rehearing scheduled News Analysis Reheard on Sept. 9, 2009 News Analysis	Jan. 21, 2010 News	5-4

Visit the first link for arguments and full docket of oral argument transcripts and briefs.

========================================

ADDED:

HERE IS A LINK TO THE SUPREME COURT RULING (5-4)

-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 22nd of January 2010 03:49:11 PM

Sanders · Diamond

On an aside, I find it incredibly ironic that SCOTUS drives a blow to democracy on a case about a movie that was mostly intended to "dress down" Hillary days before her campaign finale and here on the same day Hillary Clinton herself is fighting for the freedom of speech rights of people all over the world in challenging China.

Some day, history will capture this as the shining moment of Hillary Clinton. She rises above the muck... EVERY SINGLE TIME.

-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 22nd of January 2010 03:04:40 PM

Sanders · Diamond

"

Citizens United ruling issued by Supreme Court

by Andrew Clevenger

The U.S. Supreme Court rolled back limits on campaign spending by corporations and unions in its 5-4 decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission, published today.

SCOTUSblog has posted a helpful summary of coverage and reactions here.

As I’ve noted before, West Virginia has been trying to align its electioneering laws with the latest Supreme Court rulings. [snip]

Third-party campaign spending in West Virginia has attracted national attention and resulted in a previous opinion by the Supreme Court.

More . . .

"

===================

I like this author. He is very succinct and very resourceful. Links have fantastic info.

Kbentleyis · Diamond

This is a benchmark. I know some are against this, but it stems on two important issues for me. The Fairness Doctrine won't fly, and I don't like the idea that unions have been big in getting a president elected. This decision rather evens the playing field.

Building 4112 · Moderator

I can't believe how the money is going to flow, and control elections.............I don't like this, and from reading the articles, seems like congress will do something, but how long will that
take.............

Besides the corporations, and the BUNDLING, Obama still can't explain his "mystery"
donations, and Puma has been inquiring about this.

Sanders · Diamond

Kbentleyis wrote:
This is a benchmark. I know some are against this, but it stems on two important issues for me. The Fairness Doctrine won't fly, and I don't like the idea that unions have been big in getting a president elected. This decision rather evens the playing field.

KB, That is a great perspective. Yes, unions have had an unfair advantage over corporations that this ruling would negate.

So any future revisions of McCain-Feingold would have to balance the scale on both ends of this.

Building 4112 wrote:
I can't believe how the money is going to flow, and control elections............. I don't like this, and from reading the articles, seems like congress will do something, but how long will that take.............

Besides the corporations, and the BUNDLING, Obama still can't explain his "mystery" donations, and Puma has been inquiring about this.

Yes, both of these are worrisome. It takes a long time for the Congress to enact anything meaningful, especially when it might affect themselves. I hope this will be an exception as it has far-reaching implications in how FEC has been conducting its oversight business and all the puts and takes that the various politicos have assumed/depended upon.

It certainly shifts the scale for the immediate upcoming 2010 elections... but we cannot certainly say that it tips it in favor of GOP.. although that would be the easy assumpton.. lately the Dems have proven to be corporate socialists.

Yes, as you say Buildling-4112, there is the unaddressed part about the mystery donations.. that was beyond the scope of what was in front of the SCOTUS. I wish someone can elevate it to that level.

-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 22nd of January 2010 05:05:43 PM

Building 4112 · Moderator

Sanders there are so many applications, and so much that needs to be debated, and in regards to free speech.........

Well, not to mention "International Corporations"................what they have done, and will be doing to our election system.

Sanders · Diamond

You bring up a great point. Ownership of corporation is very fuzzy nowadays. Even if a company is registered in the US, its shareholders may be mostly outside the country.. and even the company secretaries do not always know who is the real stockholders. They can slice and dice it to show > 50% US ownership.. but then is that sufficient basis to call it a US Corporation for this purpose?

Sanders · Diamond

"
Kennedy invokes prior restraint

By David L. Hudson Jr.
First Amendment scholar
01.22.10

Justice Anthony Kennedy invoked one of the most time-honored concepts in First Amendment law in his opinion yesterday in Citizens United v. FEC, a ruling that transforms the area of campaign finance reform. That concept is prior restraint.

A prior restraint on speech occurs if the government imposes pre-publication hurdles and reviews before allowing speech to enter the marketplace of ideas. If a law, regulation, policy or scheme can be shown to be a prior restraint, then there is a strong presumption against it. That’s because, according to many legal experts, antagonism to prior restraints on speech and press was the initial, central concern of the Founding Fathers when they ratified the first 45 words of the Bill of Rights — the First Amendment. The Founders did not want the government to be able to prevent speech by subjecting individuals to licensing laws and such. If speech proves harmful once uttered, they reasoned, then individuals can be punished for it, as in libel cases.

A classic type of prior restraint was the old English law that required printers to obtain licenses from the Crown. John Milton railed against such licensing in his famous work Areopagitica in 1644.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes initially subscribed to the somewhat limited notion that the First Amendment protects against prior restraints, not subsequent punishments. In Patterson v. Colorado (1907), Holmes wrote: “In the first place, the main purpose of such constitutional provisions is to prevent all such previous restraints upon publications as had been practised by other governments, and they do not prevent the subsequent punishment of such as may be deemed contrary to the public welfare.”

In more modern times prior restraint has remained a central concern. Chief Justice Warren Burger referred to a gag order preventing the press from reporting on a criminal trial as prior restraint. Burger branded such restraints as “the most serious and least tolerable infringements” on First Amendment freedoms in his opinion in Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart (1976).

Laws that regulate who may obtain a permit to demonstrate or conduct a parade also may constitute a prior restraint on expression.

Which brings us to Kennedy and his majority opinion in Citizens United. Assailing the regulatory scheme imposed on corporations wishing to comply with federal campaign-finance laws, Kennedy wrote: “This regulatory scheme may not be a prior restraint on speech in the strict sense of that term, for prospective speakers are not compelled by law to seek an advisory opinion from the [Federal Election Commission] before the speech takes place,” he began.

However, he noted that the complexity of the regulations and the deference shown to the FEC’s administrative rules for campaign finance mean that for all practical purposes a speaker must tread very lightly for fear of FEC enforcement coming crashing down on him.

“These onerous restrictions thus function as the equivalent of prior restraint by giving the FEC power analogous to licensing laws implemented in 16th and 17th century England, laws and government practices of the sort that the First Amendment was drawn to prohibit.”

Kennedy’s opinion shows that the venerated concept of prior restraint still carries force in First Amendment jurisprudence.

"

Source link

---------------------------------

This is very good read and helps understand where Justice Kennedy was coming from.. but the effect remains the same. I am still not liking the decision for its impact on democracy is not at all good.

Imagine this. Companies that have significant foreign investment/control can potentially affect the outcome of our election by brainwashing our people!!

-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 22nd of January 2010 08:12:11 PM

Sanders · Diamond

"Justices shift campaign-finance rules" (McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, The Philadelphia Inquirer 1/22/10)

(Emphasis added)

"

Justices shift campaign-finance rules

Jan 22, 2010 (The Philadelphia Inquirer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- A divided Supreme Court yesterday wiped out decades of laws designed to curb corporate influence on elections, ruling that a government ban on political spending by corporations and unions violates the First Amendment.

The sweeping shift in the rules will reshape the way campaigns are conducted in the 2010 midterm races already under way and beyond. Experts in campaign-finance law predicted a flood of unrestricted special-interest spending.

In a 5-4 decision that overturned two court precedents, a conservative majority freed corporations to spend from their general treasuries to directly advocate the election or defeat of candidates for president and Congress.

"When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority. "This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves." The decision, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, keeps in place the ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates, enshrined in federal law since 1907. In addition, public disclosure of expenditures and contributors will still be required.

Most Democrats condemned the decision, with President Obama urging Congress to pursue an aggressive response. Republicans praised the court's action as a victory for freedom, though it was far from clear who might benefit more. Together, the parties benefited from a record $2.6 billion in political spending from all sources in the 2008 election cycle.

"Our democracy depends upon free speech, not just for some but for all," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who had pressed an earlier lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court over campaign-finance restrictions.

Before yesterday's ruling, independent groups and political action committees were barred from advertising within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary. Now, they can run ads right up through Election Day, or buy up blocks of network time to use at strategic moments in the days and weeks before voting.

Political analysts also predicted a surge in Internet and direct-mail advertising.

"The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation," Justice John Paul Stevens said in a vigorous dissent, reading his 90-page opinion -- the longest of five opinions issued in the case -- from the bench.

State regulations are likely to be affected, because the court overturned its precedent in a 1990 case, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, that had restricted independent expenditures by corporations.

"There definitely will be a ripple effect in terms of state and local laws," said Michael Toner, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and a partner at the Bryan Cave law firm in Washington. "I think they are no longer valid after this ruling." Toner, a Republican, said he supported campaign-finance restrictions. He said he was struck by the breadth of the "very libertarian" decision. "They're really deregulating the system, saying, 'Have at it,' " Toner said.

The court also held that independent corporate expenditures have no corrupting influence, because no money is given to the candidates. Legislatures have long used the appearance of corruption as a justification for restrictions on campaign cash.

"It's the Super Bowl of bad decisions," said Common Cause president Bob Edgar, a former Democratic congressman from Delaware County.

More . . .

"

===================================

I believe it is a bad decision regardless of which side of the political spectrum you are on.

Note that the cable TV channels are not talking/complaining much about this at all. They are very happy... they will get lots of money from the corporations and special interests.

-- Edited by Sanders on Saturday 23rd of January 2010 12:21:13 AM

Sanders · Diamond

"A Shocking Win for Fat Cats" (The Daily Beast 1/22/10)

"

A Shocking Win for Fat Cats

by Mark McKinnon

The ruling allowing unlimited campaign spending is a huge win for special interests. Mark McKinnon and Steve Hildebrand make the bipartisan case for how Congress can fix the political money mess.

The Supreme Court just sucker-punched hope and change and cozied up to the status quo on money and politics. On Tuesday, voters sent a wake up call to Washington, and today the court just gave the voters yet another reason to be mad as hell.

Against the backdrop of angry Massachusetts voters, the Court’s decision today in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission allowing unlimited spending by corporations and unions in elections means that unless there’s serious, bold campaign finance reform in Washington, the notion of any fundamental “change” in Washington just hit the immoveable object: big money. Politicians who ignore the politics of this decision do so at their peril.

Politicians raise more and more money every year. Voters get more and more disillusioned. Something has to give.

There’s a wall of campaign money that separates regular voters from their representatives, and we believe the only way to fix it now is for Congress to respond to the Roberts Court decision with legislation that puts voters in charge. It is also an answer to the angry voters who, in the words of Sen.-Elect Scott Brown, want candidates “not beholden to the special interests.”

We’ve advised and elected dozens of federal and state candidates from our respective parties. We can tell you, unequivocally, that what ruins a good political leader is the unending chase for campaign contributions. Candidates are forced to travel the country begging wealthy people for money instead of finding solutions to our country’s biggest problems. They hate it, but the system forces them to do it.

That’s why today’s decision is both a scourge and an opportunity. In a nutshell, the Roberts Court overturned a six decade-long prohibition against spending corporate and union treasury money to directly campaign for or against federal candidates.

We both believe that there is too much “interested” money in politics today and not enough of the small donor contributions that drove the Obama campaign’s fundraising. The Citizens United decision makes this bad situation worse. It will unleash an unlimited amount of corporate political spending, and fuel an escalating campaign fundraising arms race among members of Congress to keep up. They spend too much time fundraising already—time that gets in the way of doing the work they’re supposed to do.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat from Arkansas is a perfect example. Senator Lincoln complained recently that she had lost $300,000 due to canceling fundraisers when she was “forced” to be in Washington for the health care vote. Now consider her situation knowing that millions will be spent for or against her because of that vote. It’s a catch-22, and regardless of how we feel about Sen. Lincoln and her positions, why do we let stand a system that forces members of Congress to constantly juggle doing their jobs with the fundraising it takes to keep their jobs?

And voters hate it, too, but for different reasons. A survey by the U of T/Austin said campaign donors are more influential with members of Congress than anyone else. In the same survey, voters ranked themselves dead last. Gallup’s 2009 annual ranking of the honesty and integrity of various professions placed members of Congress lower than ever before. Just nine percent of Americans believed it was an honest and ethical job, ranking it only above lobbyists (which debuted on the list at the bottom), car salesmen, and advertising practitioners.

More . . .

"

Sanders · Diamond

This is a MUST READ in FULL. I almost posted this as a separate post..

"

An Intellectually Dishonest Power Grab

By Ruth Marcus January 23, 2010

WASHINGTON -- In opening the floodgates for corporate money in election campaigns, the Supreme Court did not simply engage in a brazen power grab. It did so in an opinion stunning in its intellectual dishonesty.

Many of those commenting on the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission have focused on the power grab part. I agree. It was unnecessary for the court to go so far when there were several less-radical grounds available. It was audacious to seize the opportunity to overrule precedents when the parties had not pressed this issue and the lower courts not considered it. It was the height of activism to usurp the judgments of Congress and state legislatures about how best to prevent corruption of the political process.

"If it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more," a wise judge once wrote. That was Chief Justice John Roberts -- back when -- and dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens rightly turned that line against him.

As bad as the court's activism, though, was its shoddy scholarship.

First, the majority flung about dark warnings of "censorship" and "banned" speech as if upholding the existing rules would leave corporations and labor unions with no voice in the political process. Untrue. Under federal election law before the Supreme Court demolished it, corporations and labor unions were free to say whatever they wanted about political candidates whenever they wanted to say it. They simply were not permitted to use unlimited general treasury funds to do so. Instead, they were required to use money raised by their political action committees from employees and members. This is hardly banning speech.

Second, in the face of logic and history, the majority acted as if there could be no constitutional distinction between a corporation and a human being. Untrue. The Supreme Court has long held that corporations are considered "persons" under the Constitution and therefore entitled to its protections. For more than a century, Congress has barred corporations from making direct contributions to political candidates, with no suggestion that it must treat corporate persons the same as real ones; that prohibition stands, at least for now. The "conceit" of corporate personhood, as Stevens called it, does not mandate absolute equivalence. That corporations enjoy free speech protections does not mean they enjoy every protection afforded an actual person. Is a corporation entitled to vote? To run for office?

Third, misreading its precedents and cherry-picking quotations, the majority acted as if the chief case it overturned was an outlier. In that 1990 case, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a six-member majority came to the unsurprising conclusion that a state law prohibiting corporations from making unlimited independent expenditures from their general funds was constitutional. The court dismissed this ruling as "a significant departure from ancient First Amendment principles." Again, untrue.

[SNIP]

Fourth, the majority bizarrely invoked the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" defense. Under the Austin ruling, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy argued, lawmakers unhappy with being lampooned in the movie "could have done more than discourage its distribution -- they could have banned the film." Beyond untrue. There is no scenario under which works of art about fictional lawmakers could be limited by campaign finance laws.

That the majority would stoop to this claim underscores the weakness of its case -- and the audacity of the result it has inflicted on the political process.

"

Full article.
==========================================

I am disappointed. I look to SCOTUS for solid judgment..

This is happening at the root of our democracy. When the fence eats the garden, man we have trouble!

-- Edited by Sanders on Saturday 23rd of January 2010 11:15:08 AM

ssmith · Platinum

I'm going to post Karl Denniger's post on this... I have to admit I agree with it. The problem is the corruption that comes from big money, but that being said, I do not want free speech impeded on. They have to figure out how to get rid of the corruption, w/o lessening the freedom of speech right.. I like Karl's solution for it.

Here is his post.. I just copied and pasted:
=========================================================

I'm probably going to draw a lot of fire for this, but I believe the US Supreme Court made the right decision yesterday:

WASHINGTON—A divided Supreme Court struck down decades-old limits on corporate political expenditures, potentially reshaping the 2010 election landscape by permitting businesses and unions to spend freely on commercials for or against candidates.

President Barack Obama attacked the ruling and said it gave "a green light to a new stampede of special-interest money in our politics," particularly "big oil, Wall Street banks, health-insurance companies and the other powerful interests" that "drown out the voices of everyday Americans." He pledged to work with lawmakers to craft a "forceful response."

What sort of "forceful response" might that be? The use of force (that is, the government's stash of guns), right? "Do as we say, or we (maybe literally) shoot you!"

Hmmm....

Let me make my viewpoint clear on this, lest a whole swarm of lemmings start trying to put words in my mouth:

"Congress shall make no law.... or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" - This is very clear. Laws restricting speech are unconstitutional. Period.

Money is not speech. However, money buys amplifiers in all of their forms. If you stand on a street corner and talk, people within 10 feet can hear you. If you buy a $2 megaphone people within 30 feet - in front of you - can hear you. If you buy a $100 powered megaphone, people can hear you to a range of perhaps 100'.

So long as I don't drown out other people's ability to speak and be heard I should be able to buy and use as big an amplifier as I would like (and can afford.) This is the old libertarian (little "L") principle: I can swing my arms around all I want so long as my fist does not connect with your nose.
As a consequence if you honor the black-letter law as expressed in The First Amendment, you are led to the inescapable conclusion that The US Supreme Court came to the correct decision - whether it is personally distasteful or not.

The true test of whether you believe in liberties and rights is not whether you support them when they coincide with what you'd like to see happen - it is whether you support them when they are adverse to what you would prefer.

But with that said, I do believe there is a serious problem with campaigns and politicians - and corruption thereof.

And here, I have a solution.

Public employees - that is, politicians - should not be able to receive a campaign donation (in any form) from anyone except an actual constituent - that is, someone who is qualified and registered to vote in their district or state.

Let the corporations (and individuals), along with PACs, Unions and others buy all the issue and even candidate ads they want - so long as they honestly identify who is funding the speech in question.

But bar all public employees from receiving any campaign contribution from anyone other than a natural person who is registered to vote in the area represented by that particular politician, with violators subject to felony prosecution. If such an act is traced to a corporation the firm's charter is revoked.

Isn't it funny how we never address the actual problem - the fact that candidates have huge war chests funded by corporations (directly and indirectly) and instead try to focus on trying to restrict people's desire to speak - a right that is guaranteed under our Constitution?

Solve the problem instead of allowing politicians to play Kabuki Theater with this (very legitimate) issue.

-- Edited by ssmith on Saturday 23rd of January 2010 12:27:46 PM

Sanders · Diamond

Hi ssmith, Good post. Thanks. I really like the solutions that are proposed by that author.

ssmith, Can I make a request.. please edit your post above and add a link to the article/blog post. "Edit Post" is in the "MORE" pull down menu on the top left of your post. Thanks.

-- Edited by Sanders on Saturday 23rd of January 2010 12:42:22 PM

Sanders · Diamond

OPINION
JANUARY 22, 2010, 6:53 P.M. ET

(Emphasis added)

"

Newsflash: First Amendment Upheld

An end to giving political speech less protection than pornography.

By BRADLEY A. SMITH

Thursday's Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which the Court struck down a blanket government prohibition on corporate political speech, is a wonderful decision that restores political speech to the primacy it was intended to have under the First Amendment.

To truly appreciate the stakes in Citizens United, one must remember the government's legal position in the case. Implicit in its briefs but laid bare at oral argument, the government maintained that the Constitution allows the government to ban distribution of books over Amazon's Kindle; to prohibit a union from hiring a writer to author a book titled, "Why Working Americans Should Support the Obama Agenda"; and to prohibit Simon & Schuster from publishing, or Barnes & Noble from selling, a book containing even one line of advocacy for or against a candidate for public office. As David Barry would say, "I am not making this up."

The Court said "no," and the only shocking thing about the decision is that the four liberal justices said "yes."

Hopefully, this ruling marks an end to 20 years of jurisprudence in which the Court has provided less protection to core political speech than it has to Internet pornography, the transmission of stolen information, flag burning, commercial advertising, topless dancing, and burning a cross outside an African-American church.

Unfortunately, some in Congress are using this decision to push for a government takeover of political campaigns through the misnamed "Fair Elections Now Act," which has over 100 sponsors (all but three of them Democrats) in the House. This legislation would use tax dollars to fund congressional campaigns.

This "solution" to the alleged problem of moneyed interests dominating our politics, apart from other objections, is simply irrelevant to the issue at hand. Corporations will still be able to make independent expenditures, regardless of how the candidates fund their campaigns. Still others professing outrage at Citizens United, such as Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), talk of using securities regulation to hamstring corporations that dare to speak. Mr. Frank is pledging to hold hearings.

It is true that the Supreme Court's ruling will lead to more corporate (and union) political speech. But even if one thinks that is a bad thing, there is little empirical reason to believe the horror stories of corporate dominance of the democratic process.

Already, 28 states representing 60% of the nation's population allow corporate independent expenditures in state races. These states, including Virginia, Utah and Oregon, are hardly mismanaged. Rather, they are disproportionately among the fastest growing, best governed states in the country.

The dissenting justices in Citizens United see corporations as organizations in which people are trapped. They bemoan the allegedly lost rights of shareholders who may not personally support the candidates a corporation might choose to support. The justices who joined Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion, on the other hand, regard this as no different than any other question of corporate governance.

Corporations frequently take action that some shareholders do not like, including, for example, making charitable contributions. Stockholders are free to leave the corporation if their disagreements become too strong. Meanwhile, why should the majority be prohibited from voicing their views as a corporate enterprise?

Much of the opposition to Citizens United is simply the opposition of the political left to what they perceive corporations will say. Consider campaign finance "reform" organizations that have long been supported by corporations. New York University's Brennan Center for Justice has received support, for example, from a rogue's gallery of corporate America, including Enron and Bear Stearns. Never has the public heard a peep from this organization about whether all shareholders in these corporations actually support the center's agenda.

Or, for that matter, consider John McCain's Reform Institute, founded to promote campaign finance reform after his 2000 presidential run. It has received funding from AIG. Did all AIG's shareholders approve?

[snip]

But the First Amendment is all about distrusting government to make those decisions about who has spoken too much. That's why Thursday's decision is such a breath of fresh air.

More . . .

"

===============================================

Well, I am not so bullish on saintly and self-less communication from the big corporations and corporate interests in the context of elections.

There are things about McCain-Feingold that I do not like.. There are things about current political processes, such as complete disclosure of individual campaign contribution via various Internet sites that I detest. I do not see this ruling changing any of those.

So, the individual contributors are made powerless, their privacy taken away.. and corporate contributions and corporate voice is upheld all the way to the day of the elections... and you want me to call is good for democracy? DREAM ON!

This is not a victory for First Amendment.. It is the worst caricature of First Amendment.. and by a trusted body entrusted with doing the correct things by Constitution taking into consideration the times and technologies. I am very surprised by the outcome of this at the highest of our courts. I expected more... I think we should expect more from the SCOTUS, don't you?

-- Edited by Sanders on Saturday 23rd of January 2010 02:52:00 PM

Sanders · Diamond

Ok folks, this is the best defense of SCOTUS argument I have seen. So, I will add this to the top post.

DEFENSE OF THE SCOTUS DECISION... FROM STEVE SIMPSON, SR. ATTORNEY, INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE, CATO INSTITUTE.

"

Want to know what campaign finance reform is really about? Watch this video

By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
01/22/10 7:25 PM EST

I’ve read more newspaper and magazine articles, court cases, and blog posts on various aspects of campaign finance reform than I care to remember, but none of them captured the essential points of what is at stake as well as this video produced by the Cato Institute: (Emphasis added)

"

Source link

-- Edited by Sanders on Saturday 23rd of January 2010 08:18:34 PM

Sanders · Diamond

"

A Resounding Defense of the First Amendment: ‘Congress Shall Make No Law’

Posted by

David Bossie Jan 23rd 2010 at 8:14 am

Thursday, in his resounding defense of the First Amendment in the Citizens United decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority:

…[w]hen Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.

“Censorship” is a dirty word in America, and that is why the restrictions at issue in our case were cloaked in the guise of “campaign finance reform.” But the fact remains that any restrictions on political speech, especially those that criminalize such speech, send us down a very slippery and very dangerous slope.

Last March, our government argued in court that it has the Constitutional authority to ban books that mention a candidate for federal office. The government later retracted that statement, but is there any doubt that such a statement never would have been made if there had not been 100 years of progressively more intrusive restrictions on political speech preceding it? Had the Court not acted, what was to prevent the government from asserting that authority over the internet, which does not have the benefit of two centuries of tradition and jurisprudence protecting it?

There is also the practical issue of the relatively unremarked and inconvenient fact that 28 states permit corporate political speech during elections. Virginia, which recently held a gubernatorial election, is one such example. If , as many argue, corporate political speech is corrupting by definition, where was the impropriety in that election? In fact, I would challenge opponents of our case to compare the corruption levels in states prohibiting corporate and union expenditures with states that allow it. I think that such a comparison would demonstrate that corporate speech is not inherently corrupting.

Finally, as the Court acknowledged, the position that corporations cannot engage in political speech has a fatal logical flaw. Almost every major media outlet in the country is owned by a corporation and most of them advocate for or against candidates via endorsements, opinion columns, or politically-oriented programming. Why should General Electric, which owns MSNBC, be permitted to use its nearly unlimited resources to influence elections, while I, who made Hillary The Movie using corporate funds for roughly .03% of the budget, could be put in prison for airing the documentary? (Emphasis added)

More . . .

"

====================================

The real issue is MSM is owned by corporations and are able to influence public viewpoint. There are no easy answers.

I am seeing SCOTUS' argument much better, having read thru the decision in full this afternoon.

Sanders · Diamond

"

Free Speech for Corporations

By Steve Chapman | January 24, 2010

During the 2008 campaign, a group called Citizens United put together a documentary, "Hillary: The Movie." Remember seeing it on cable TV? No, you don't, because the organization decided it couldn't show the film without the risk of felony prosecution. It had every reason to be afraid.

The problem was that the movie was not only about Clinton but made the case that she should not be president. Worse, it was supposed to be shown during -- get this -- an election campaign. That, under the federal law, made it verboten.

You might think the point of a campaign is to air facts and opinions about the people running, so that voters will have a wealth of information upon which to choose. But in the judgment of Congress, some facts and opinions are not welcome.

Citizens United is a nonprofit corporation set up to engage in conservative advocacy -- an assemblage of individuals working for a political agenda. As individuals, they have the right to spend money to spread their opinions. But when they form a corporation for that purpose, some people think the same activities should be illegal.

That point of view prevailed in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which forbade corporations from engaging in "electioneering communication" within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. But Citizens United claimed the rule violated its free speech rights. And last week, the Supreme Court agreed.

The result was not in much doubt after the justices heard the case. The government lawyer defending the statute was asked: If movies financed by corporations may be banned because they express opinions on candidates, how about books?

"It's a 500-page book, and at the end it says, ‘So vote for X,' the government could ban that?" asked Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. Replied the Justice Department attorney, "Well, if it says ‘vote for X,' it would be express advocacy and it would be covered by the pre-existing Federal Election Campaign Act provision."

If the corporation wanted to publish such a book, he continued, "we could prohibit the publication of the book using corporate treasury funds." We could prohibit the publication of the book.

If corporate advocacy may be forbidden as it was under the law in question, it's not just Exxon Mobil and Citigroup that are rendered mute. Nonprofit corporations set up merely to advance goals shared by citizens, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association, also have to put a sock in it. So much for the First Amendment goal of fostering debate about public policy.

It is often argued that corporate speech may be banned because corporations enjoy certain privileges afforded by law. But it's a longstanding constitutional axiom that the government may not require the surrender of constitutional rights in exchange for state-furnished benefits -- say, barring criticism of Congress by residents of public housing.

Once you grant the government that sort of power, it is bound to expand. Newspapers could be forbidden to make endorsements. Right now, media companies are exempt from the ban. But why should a newspaper be free to spend money urging voters to support a candidate, while other companies are not?

Critics fear that freed from constraints, giant corporations will burn vast sums to help or hurt politicians. In reality, most business people are not about to plunge into divisive election campaigns, for fear of antagonizing customers.

[snip]

Under this ruling, corporations will be allowed to speak about politics, just as they may speak about their products. In both realms, though, the effort is wasted unless they offer something their audience wants. The marketplace of ideas is not so different from the marketplace of goods.

Corporations have the freedom to communicate what they want. But the people still have the ultimate right: the right to say no.

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Full article

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Under this ruling, corporations will be allowed to speak about politics, just as they may speak about their products. In both realms, though, the effort is wasted unless they offer something their audience wants. The marketplace of ideas is not so different from the marketplace of goods.

I disagree with this vehemently.

Here's what I say:

Buyer beware has never been more meaningful! Now, you are buying into ideas about people.. beliefs that you might act upon at the ballot box, beliefs fed to you via repeated advertisements... and you have no way to return it within 30 days!

And, my heart goes out to Hillary. I cannot imagine how she felt in the midst of all this. If this case had come up for emergency decision... well the video would have been aired on pay-per-view TV before November 2008.

-- Edited by Sanders on Sunday 24th of January 2010 12:23:47 PM

Sanders · Diamond

This is something I am concerned about.... in the wake of SCOTUS ruling.

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Campaign Money From Foreign Firms May Be Coming

By Frank James | January 22, 2010 4:56 pm

Will the Supreme Court's landmark campaign-finance decision allow foreign interests to have an impact on U.S. elections?

That's the intriguing question being asked by the Center for Public Integrity. When the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for Congress to ban corporations and unions from contributing money directly to political-advertising campaigns for and against clients, it may have cleared the way for foreign-owned multinationals to pump money in U.S. campaigns in an attempt to influence the outcome of elections.

An excerpt from a CPI piece:

But it's one thing for U.S. firms to have their say. What about foreign companies that operate U.S. subsidiaries? Many of these, like American businesses, are owned by ordinary shareholders -- but a host of others are owned, in whole or in part, by the foreign governments themselves.

One prominent examples is CITGO Petroleum Company -- once the American-born Cities Services Company, but purchased in 1990 by the Venezuelan government-owned Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. The Citizens United ruling could conceivably allow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has sharply criticized both of the past two U.S. presidents, to spend government funds to defeat an American political candidate, just by having CITGO buy TV ads bashing his target.

And it's not just Chavez. The Saudi government owns Houston's Saudi Refining Company and half of Motiva Enterprises. Lenovo, which bought IBM's PC assets in 2004, is partially owned by the Chinese government's Chinese Academy of Sciences. And Singapore's APL Limited operates several U.S. port operations. A weakening of the limit on corporate giving could mean China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and any other country that owns companies that operate in the U.S. could also have significant sway in American electioneering.

The CPI analysts go on to say that experts are divided on whether foreign companies will really be legally able to participate in U.S. elections in this way. But it's certainly not clear that they won't.

The CPI piece ends on a worrisome note:

The Federal Election Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Even if the Supreme Court, the FEC, or Congress decide that the right of corporations to engage in electioneering does not apply to foreign-owned corporations, with significant foreign investment in even American-based companies, it could prove quite difficult to determine who may spend and who may not.
Source link

Source link

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Sanders · Diamond

January 21, 2010

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John McCain on Campaign Finance

By The Situation Room

BLITZER: Senator McCain is joining us now from Capitol Hill.

Senator, what's your reaction to this decision by the Supreme Court?

MCCAIN: Well, I was obviously disappointed. The -- and it is very complex, 116-page decision and we haven't gotten through all of it. And it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, including some that Jeffrey Toobin just raised. And, by the way, I would point out that this is -- will allow for unlimited contributions from unions, as well as corporations.

So there -- it does maintain some of the provisions that we had. It does reverse laws not just BCRA, but back to 1907.

And so there will have to be adjustments made. And I think one conclusion you could draw is that you'll see a lot more money in political campaigns in an unrestricted fashion.

BLITZER: And is that...

MCCAIN: And Americans will...

BLITZER: ...is that...

MCCAIN: ...judge whether that's good or bad.

BLITZER: And what do you think, good or bad?

MCCAIN: Oh, I don't think it's -- it's good. I think that there should have been, obviously, I thought there should have been reasonable limits. And I hope that at least there will be more disclosure called for here. And so it's going to be a very interesting part of American politics.

BLITZER: You worked with the Republicans and Democrats, Russ Feingold, in particular, to get this to become the law of the land. You succeeded.

Listen to John Boehner, the Republican leader in the House, reacting to the Supreme Court decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), MINORITY LEADER: When you look at our campaign finance system and what happened under McCain-Feingold, we pushed hundreds of millions of dollars out of the light and into the dark. That money was still being spent, it's just that nobody could see where it was coming from.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Does he have a point?

MCCAIN: I don't -- I don't think so. I think that there was a good deal of disclosure. There's always things that happen and money will find its way into political campaigns.

But Congressman Boehner, I say with respect, opposed the legislation to start with.

The reason why we had such support for that legislation is because of the corruption it was very obvious that the system had bred. And their -- and I'm afraid that that may again appear in American political campaigns. It's always there, but I'm afraid it may get larger.

BLITZER: Is there anything Congress can do about this?

MCCAIN: I don't -- at the first look, I don't think so. We'll have a look at it and maybe we'll have to see how this new set of rules, which is basically what the Supreme Court has decided upon, and see how it works in American political campaigns.

BLITZER: So it's going to -- and you're up for reelection this year. I guess some big corporations, labor unions, other special interests, they can come in and either support your reelection or they can oppose it. There's going to be a lot of uncertainty now, given that -- the rules of the game changing as dramatically as they did today.

MCCAIN: I guess I'd like to see Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of -- of General Electric, say I'm Jeffrey Immelt and I port this -- you know, support this message and -- or union leader, Mr. Stern, say, I'm Mr. Stern, head of the Service Employees Union, and I support this message. It will very interesting to see how that works out.

BLITZER: Any regrets about voting to confirm some of those Supreme Court justices who -- who decided today against McCain- Feingold?

MCCAIN: Oh, no. I -- I judge people on their overall record and their overall qualifications. I think that's -- you should never judge someone on a specific issue. It's on their general adherence to the Constitution of the United States.

BLITZER: Good point.

All right, Senator, I'm going to have you hold on for a moment.

MCCAIN: Sure

More . . .

"

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The rest of the clip is about health care reform; I will post that separately.

Hillarysworld

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Supreme Court Removes Limits on Corporate, Labor Donations to Campaigns

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Want to know what campaign finance reform is really about? Watch this video

By: Mark Tapscott Editorial Page Editor01/22/10 7:25 PM EST

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Freedom to spend

The Supreme Court rules that businesses and unions may fund political messages in elections

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A Death Blow to McCain-Feingold

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Court Kills Limits on Corporate Politicking

By JESS BRAVIN

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Reaction: Supreme Court's campaign finance ruling

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The Court’s Blow to Democracy

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Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit

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Citizens United ruling issued by Supreme Court

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Justices shift campaign-finance rules

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A Shocking Win for Fat Cats

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An Intellectually Dishonest Power Grab

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(Emphasis added)

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Newsflash: First Amendment Upheld

An end to giving political speech less protection than pornography.

By BRADLEY A. SMITH

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Want to know what campaign finance reform is really about? Watch this video

By: Mark Tapscott Editorial Page Editor01/22/10 7:25 PM EST

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A Resounding Defense of the First Amendment: ‘Congress Shall Make No Law’

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Free Speech for Corporations

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Campaign Money From Foreign Firms May Be Coming

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John McCain on Campaign Finance

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By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
01/22/10 7:25 PM EST

By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
01/22/10 7:25 PM EST