Red alert!
I don’t have time to do a full diary on this, but the Supreme Court is poised to overthrow years of precedent and allow corporations to directly contribute to political campaigns.
If that happens, you’ll only have whatever free speech your money can buy. Guess who can buy more?
Please read up on this at http://action.citizen.org/t/5489/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=2067 and sign the petition and bang some drums on this.
We have a conservative court. They could open the floodgates here, and very well might, unless they fear complete public outrage. Please help make that happen!!!
.
Citizens United, it should be noted, turned to seasoned Court advocate Theodore B. Olson, former U.S. Solicitor General and a principal legal architect of President George W. Bush’s legal fight in winning the 2000 election, to do its merits brief, and for the oral argument. James Bopp, Jr., the Terre Haute, Ind., lawyer and conservative advocate who had been handling Citizens United’s case, filed a merits brief on behalf of an amicus, the Committee for Truth in Politics, Inc.
The FEC and the Justice Department, in the government’s merits brief, insisted that the Supreme Court’s McConnell decision in 2003 controls the outcome of this new test. Using corporate dollars to pay for an “unmistakable” appeal for voters to reject Sen. Clinton, the brief asserted, is exactly what the McConnell ruling allowed the government to ban.
In the competition over amici support, Citizens United emerged with numerically greater support, coming mainly from conservative advocacy groups (ranging from the National Rifle Association to the Cato Institute). However, the appeal also picked up notable support from a liberal-leaning group, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The Reporters Committee argued that the District Court ruling would allow the government to “suppress a documentary that is objectively indistinguishable from other news media commentary,” and “removes this intuitive bright-line distinction that allowed journalists to do their jobs without fear of the criminal penalties associated with violating FEC regulations.”
…
Citizens United, as its case approached oral argument, was going for a maximum victory — a sweeping rejection of congressional authority to regulate campaign spending by corporations (and, perhaps, by labor unions, too). Its brief thus seems quite audacious. But it may not turn out to be unrealistic. Just about two years ago, four dissenting Justices lamented that a majority of the Court had — at least by implication — overturned the 2003 decision in McConnell v. FEC, at least in the part upholding the ban on “electioneering communications.” That was their protest to the 5-4 ruling in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life.
≈ Cross-posted from BooMan’s fp story — Casual Observation ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."an amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” brief has been filed as well.
perhaps any constitutional lawyers, or others with more knowledge of the legalities, who may be lurking could weigh in on the prospects of the court granting these exceptional rights to corporations.
what little l have learned in my, albeit, limited research, hasn’t been very illuminating.
The Supreme Court was designed to essentially ignore public opinion, even when that opinion is unified in outrage, and I fear that the current court will exemplify this concept in spades…
But if we rage in protest, Congress may pay attention and pass a law preventing this.
there already is, starting a long time ago. the first was the The Tillman Act of 1907, barring corporations from contributing money to political campaigns.
The law marked the birth of federal campaign finance law which ever since has embraced and expanded upon those restrictions, including the most recent reform embodied in the mccain-feingold act.
if l understand it correctly, a judgement in favor of the plaintiff, citizens united, would essentially nullify all those restrictions.
Correct. What I mean is, we can pass a law making public financing the way of the world, and screw the corporations.
I detest the fact that our system favors those with money over the rest of us. I don’t believe that’s a free speech issue at all.
l agree, totally.
public financing of campaigns, with strict time limits similar to what you see in parliamentary systems, would go a long way to solving much of what ails our republic. but that’s a whole ‘nuther issue with about as much chance of happening as l have of flapping my arms and flying.