Posted on 06/16/2003 8:29:54 AM PDT by AntiGuv
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the government can ban campaign contributions from advocacy groups, a warm-up decision to the showdown over the broader new campaign finance law.
Justices rejected a constitutional challenge to the 32-year-old federal donation ban, which applies to groups with a point of view on issues such as gun rights and abortion.
The case, involving a North Carolina anti-abortion organization, was a prelude to the court's handling of the 2002 campaign finance law.
By a vote of 7-2, the court said the right to free speech does not trump Congress' goal of limiting the corrosive effects of corporate money in politics.
Advocacy organizations maintain that their members should be allowed to pool their money and use it to elect candidates who support their issues.
The government maintained that the groups could be used to circumvent individual campaign donation limits, with little public disclosure about the source of the money.
"Any attack on the federal prohibition of direct corporate political contributions goes against the current of a century of congressional efforts," Justice David Souter wrote for the majority.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer agreed with Souter. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy agreed with the outcome.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The donation ban is not directly related to the court's review of the new campaign finance law, commonly known as McCain-Feingold for its congressional sponsors - Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., but the ruling will be closely watched for clues to what the justices might do.
The court has scheduled a special session in September, a month ahead of the start of its regular term, to consider the law that bans corporate, union and unlimited contributions - known as soft money - to national party committees.
The new law also bars a range of interest groups, including those financed with corporate or union money and those that do not disclose their donors, from airing ads mentioning federal candidates in their districts the month before a primary and two months before a general election.
When Congress rewrote the campaign finance rules, it did not change the 1971 law that makes it unlawful for any type of corporation to give money to a federal candidate or political party.
Currently only individuals, political parties,political action committees and other campaigns can contribute to federal candidates and national party committees. The court's ruling Monday maintains that status quo and continues a trend in which the high court has been willing to uphold limits on contributions.
In 2001, the court ruled that political parties could not spend unlimited amounts of money if they coordinated their efforts with a candidate. And in 2000, the court voted to back Missouri's contribution limits to state campaigns.
Elizabeth Garrett, a law professor at the University of Southern California, said the case is important because issue-oriented nonprofits have become increasingly important in campaigns.
She said it also means that provisions in the new campaign finance act that require nonprofit corporations, as well as for-profit corporations and labor unions, to use separate funds to pay for political advertisements are more likely to survive the court's review.
"The decision is a green light for other laws regulating these organizations and their involvement in campaigns, such as aggressive disclosure laws," said Garrett.
The case is Federal Election Commission v. Beaumont, 02-403.
I have been trying to get the Chicken Little Crowd to grasp that since this issue came up...
Since 1907, federal law has barred corporations from contributing directly to candidates for federal office. We hold that applying the prohibition to nonprofit advocacy corporations is consistent with the First Amendment.
From previous experience of reading the AP, it could be editroializing the news by the reporter.
Wouldn't surprise me one bit.
The decision is in PDF form here, and my version of Adobe Reader couldn't find a single instance of "corrosive" anywhere.
"or abridging the freedom of speech"
Abridging the financing of speech abridges speech
It seems to me a good way to take the issue off the table would have been to make an articulate argument that limits on speech are wrong even if the speech in question isn't popular. Instead he has ignored the constitution to make himself popular.
In terms of brilliance its right up there with the prom queen wanabe doing the football team to garner votes.
But it is a 32 year old law. CFR(McCain/Feingold) is brand new. The only thing that really bothers me is the 30 day and 60 day ad bans and I still think they will be shot down.
Also I was just pointing out the bias of the reporter with her leaving out the word "union" in regards to the original law.
That argument was advanced by 10% of the posters on this board, and roundly denounced by the other 90%. In this case I hope I'm wrong, and SCOTUS throws this whole unconstitutional mess out the window.
Please do so. It would be VERY illuminating for those who don't have any version of Acrobat.
I am not surprised.
Since there is very little similarity in the two cases, I find it difficult to understand how you could reach this conclusion.
Articulate arguments are not often useful against media-backed Democratic hyperbole and outright lies. This is not an issue where a majority of the public at large is going to actually educate themselves on the facts, and reach a proper conclusion.
Also, do not underestimate popularity. Without it, nothing else is possible. A politicians first duty is to get elected. Combine that with the fact that the Media will do everything in their power to play up the potential class-warfare argument against Republicans, and you have a situation where it is better to have the issue go away.
Sun Tzu says that a wise general should not fight a war without knowing it's outcome. What we now know, is that once the courts decide the matter, it is OVER, regardless of how it turns out. A Bush veto would have resulted in Democrats and Media beating Republicans over the head with this issue for decades.
Syllabus
FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION v. BEAUMONT ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 02–403. Argued March 25, 2003—Decided June 16, 2003
A corporation is prohibited from making “a contribution or expenditure in connection with” certain federal elections, 2 U. S. C. §441b(a), but not from establishing, administering, and soliciting contributions to a separate fund to be used for political purposes, §441b(b)(2)(C). Such a PAC (so called after the political action committee that runs it) is free to make contributions and other expenditures in connection with federal elections. Respondents, a nonprofit advocacy corporation known as North Carolina Right to Life, Inc., and others (collectively NCRL), sued petitioner Federal Election Commission (FEC), chal-lenging the constitutionality of §441b and its implementing regula-tions as applied to NCRL. As relevant here, the District Court granted NCRL summary judgment as to the ban on direct contribu-tions, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed.
Held: Applying the direct contribution prohibition to nonprofit advocacy corporations is consistent with the First Amendment. Pp. 4–16.
(a) An attack on the federal prohibition of direct corporate political contributions goes against the current of a century of congressional efforts to curb corporations’ potentially deleterious influences on fed-eral elections. Since 1907, federal law has barred such direct corpo-rate contributions. Much of the subsequent congressional attention to corporate political activity has been meant to strengthen the origi-nal, core prohibition on such contributions. Federal Election Comm’n v. National Right to Work Comm., 459 U. S. 197. As in 1907, current law focuses on the corporate structure’s special characteristics that threaten the integrity of the political process. Id., at 209. In barring corporate earnings from turning into political “war chests,” the ban was and is intended to “preven[t] corruption or the appearance of corruption.” Federal Election Comm’n v. National Conservative Political Action Comm., 470 U. S. 480, 496–497. The ban also protects indi-viduals who have paid money into a corporation or union for other purposes from having their money used to support political candi-dates to whom they may be opposed, National Right to Work, supra, at 208, and hedges against use of corporations as conduits for circum-venting “valid contribution limits,” Federal Election Comm’n v. Colo-rado Republican Federal Campaign Comm., 533 U. S. 431, 456, and n. 18. Pp. 4–8.
(b) National Right to Work all but decided against NCRL’s position that §441b’s ban on direct contributions is unconstitutional as ap-plied to nonprofit advocacy corporations. There, this Court upheld the part of §441b restricting a nonstock corporation to its member-ship when soliciting PAC contributions, concluding that the congres-sional judgment to regulate corporate political involvement warrants considerable deference and reflects a permissible assessment of the dangers that corporations pose to the electoral process. 459 U. S., at 207–211. It would be hard to read this conclusion, except on the practical understanding that the corporation’s capacity to make con-tributions was legitimately limited to indirect donations within the scope allowed to PACs. And the Court specifically rejected the argument made here, that deference to congressional judgments about corporate contribution limits turns on details of corporate form or the affluence of particular corporations. National Right to Work has re-peatedly been read as approving §441b’s prohibition on direct contri-butions, even by nonprofit corporations without great financial re-sources. Equal significance must be accorded to Federal Election Comm’n v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U. S. 238, on which NCRL and the Fourth Circuit have relied. In holding §441b’s prohi-bition on independent expenditures unconstitutional as applied to a nonprofit advocacy corporation, the Court there distinguished Na-tional Right to Work on the ground that it addressed regulation of contributions, not expenditures. Pp. 8–12.
(c) This Court could not hold for NCRL without recasting its under-standing of the risks of harm posed by corporate political contribu-tions, of the expressive significance of contributions, and of the con-sequent deference owed to legislative judgments on what to do about them. NCRL’s efforts do not unsettle existing law on these points. Its argument that Massachusetts Citizens for Life-type corporations pose no potential threat to the political system is rejected. Concern about the corrupting potential underlying the corporate ban may be implicated by advocacy corporations, which, like their for-profit coun-terparts, benefit from state-created advantages and may be able to amass substantial political war chests. Also rejected is NCRL’s argument that the application of the ban on direct contributions should be subject to strict scrutiny because §441b bars, rather than limits, contributions based on their source. When reviewing political finan-cial restrictions, the level of scrutiny is based on the importance of the political activity at issue to effective speech or political associa-tion, and restrictions on political contributions have long been treated as marginal speech restrictions subject to relatively complai-sant First Amendment review because contributions lie closer to the edges than to the core of political expression. Thus, a contribution limit passes muster if it is closely drawn to match a sufficiently im-portant interest. The time to consider the difference between a ban and a limit is when applying scrutiny at the level selected, not in se-lecting the standard of review itself. But even NCRL’s argument that §441b is not closely drawn rests on the false premise that the provision is a complete ban. In fact, the provision allows corporate political participation through PACs. And this Court does not think that regulatory burdens on PACs, including restrictions on their ability to solicit funds, renders a PAC unconstitutional as an advo-cacy corporation’s sole avenue for making political contributions.
See Right to Work, supra, at 201–202. 12–16.
278 F. 3d 261, reversed.
SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and STEVENS, O’CONNOR, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined.
(hyphenated words in this post are due to formatting of the court's ruling) - CD
Care to guess who said that?
Let me help you out. It was George H. Bush. See the quote below.
###
ABC News's This Week on January 23, 2000:
GEORGE F. WILL: I want to see if you agree with those who say it would be bad for the First Amendment? I know you're not a lawyer, you say that with some pride, but do you think a president, and we've got a lot of non-lawyer presidents, has a duty to make an independent judgment of what is and is not constitutional, and veto bills that, in his judgment, he thinks are unconstitutional? GOV. BUSH: I do.
GEORGE WILL: In which case, would you veto the McCain-Feingold bill, or the Shays-Meehan bill?
GOV. BUSH: That's an interesting question. I - I - yes I would.
###
Now, either Bush lied when he said this, or he failed to do his duty when he signed this law. You can have it either way you want it. I have my own opinion about which is right, but I’d love to hear which you think is the case.
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