Supreme Court Strikes Down Campaign Finance Reform

Organized Exploitation ^ | 01-21-2010 | Paul Kroenke

[aic4ever]

WLS-AM is reporting that the Supreme Court has just struck down campaign finance reform rules that have been in place for decades, including McCain-Feingold.

[Wolfie]

Because corporations are people, doncha know. Just with none of the social resonsibility that we expect from people. They’re just there to turn a profit.

[allmendream]

I will have to take some time to read the gist of the dissenting opinion.... just for comedy relief.

I can only imagine the insane contortions of legal reasoning one must go through to claim that political messages (the primary reason behind the first amendment) must be regulated, and that this is not Congress passing a law abridging our right to free speech.

[pepsi_junkie]

Because corporations are people, doncha know. Just with none of the social resonsibility that we expect from people. They’re just there to turn a profit.

I work for a corporation, it employees me and many thousands of other people. Our jobs are threatened every time some politician or bureaucrat decides to, for example, protect the cambodian sand flea and shut down businesses, farms, and homes without any recourse or hearing. Maybe it's not so bad for corporations, the ones who produce things that result in actual growth, to have a voice.

[andy58-in-nh]

I would be particularly interested in any side commentary offered by the lovely and gracious Justice Sotomayor, so we might get a glimpse into the brilliant analytical process we were told she would dazzle us all with... < snort >.

[Lazamataz]

I am starting to think that America is WILLING and ABLE to FIGHT to preserve its' freedom.

We are starting to show some green shoots of freedom again.

[Condor51]

*** Great news! ***

Great is right, even Fantastic!

*** I wonder how “The Big 89” was the first to report? ***

Prolly from the SCOTUS website:
Slip Opinions, Per Curiams (PC), and Original Case Decrees (D)
Citizens United vs FEC 1-21-10

[browardchad]

Start at Page 79 of the file. It's Scalia ripping the dissenting opinion (Stevens, et al) apart. Here's a taste:

"...the dissent embarks on a detailed exploration of the Framers’ views about the “role of corporations in society.” Post, at 35. The Framers didn’t like corporations, the dissent concludes, and therefore it follows (as night the day) that corporations had no rights of free speech. Of course the Framers’ personal affection or disaffection for corporations is relevant only insofar as it can be thought to be reflected in the understood meaning of the text they enacted—not, as the dissent suggests, as a freestanding substitute for that text. But the dissent’s distortion of proper analysis is even worse than that...

"Despite the corporation-hating quotations the dissent has dredged up, it is far from clear that by the end of the 18th century corporations were despised. If so, how came there to be so many of them?"

[allmendream]

Oh, because there was something of an anti corporate sentiment in some quotes of the framers of the Constitution, then it makes it OK to abridge their right to free speech?

There was also a bit of anti-clerical sentiment among the framers. Does that make it OK to take away the rights of freedom of worship?

What preposterous “logic”.

Thanks for that!

[Impy]

Major news.

I don’t know if the ruling effects the necessity of candidates saying “I approve this message”.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Right on Impy — major! Looks like Dick Morris got his revenge.