Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 09/05/2009 10:51:53 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The Supreme Court appears poised to wipe away limits on campaign spending by corporations and labor unions in time for next year's congressional elections in a case that began as a dispute over a movie about Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The justices return to the bench Wednesday , nearly a month early , to consider whether to overrule two earlier decisions that restrict how and when corporations and unions can take part in federal campaigns. Laws that impose similar limits in 24 states also are threatened.
The court first heard arguments in March in the case of whether "Hillary: The Movie," a scathingly critical look at Clinton's presidential ambitions, could be regulated as a campaign ad. The emphasis has shifted away from the 90-minute film.
Now the justices could decide whether corporations and unions should be treated differently from individuals when it comes to campaign spending. Restrictions on corporations have been around for more than 100 years; limits on unions date from the 1940s.
Deep corporate and labor pockets and the potential for corruption "amply justify treating corporate and union expenditures differently from those by individuals and ideological nonprofit groups," argued Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and other sponsors of a major campaign finance law who don't want any significant change to the restrictions.
But former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who six years ago defended the campaign finance provision he now is challenging, said the limits are strangling corporate and union freedom to speak out.
"Why is it easier to dance naked, burn a flag or wear a T-shirt profanely opposing the draft," Olson said at a Federalist Society event in July, "than it is to advocate the election or defeat of a president? That cannot be right."
Wednesday's unusual session , the court only rarely orders a case to be reargued , also will be the first to include the newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor. In August, the 55-year-old New Yorker became the court's first Hispanic and third female justice ever.
It also will be the first argument for Solicitor General Elena Kagan, a finalist for the high court seat that went to Sotomayor. Yet another former solicitor general, Seth Waxman, is representing McCain and Feingold in an effort to preserve the 2003 provision that tightened limits on ads paid for by corporations and unions and broadcast close to an election.
Kagan, defending the law on the government's behalf, and Waxman will face skeptical conservative-leaning justices, who appear to hold the upper hand on this issue. The court's liberals generally have voted to uphold campaign finance laws. Sotomayor's ascension to the court did not change its ideological balance, giving opponents of the current campaign finance laws hope this court will strike them down.
The court could have decided the case narrowly following arguments on March 24. Instead, on the last day they met before their summer break, the justices said they would consider overruling part of their 2003 decision that upheld major portions of the McCain-Feingold law as well as a 1990 decision that upheld limits on corporate spending in elections.
Three justices on the court now , Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas , already have signed minority opinions that advocated striking down both laws as unconstitutional restrictions on speech. Since the 2003 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito have joined the court. Both have questioned the validity of campaign finance laws, but have not yet gone as far as their three conservative-leaning colleagues.
Roberts and Alito made clear during the original arguments how much they worried about the control the campaign finance laws give government over political speech.
"If Wal-Mart airs an advertisement that says, `We have candidate action figures for sale, come buy them,' that counts as an electioneering communication?" Roberts asked government lawyer Malcolm Stewart.
"If it's aired in the right place at the right time, that would be covered," Stewart said.
Stewart later added that campaign finance laws could be applied to mediums such as books and e-books. "That's pretty incredible," Alito said. "You think that if a book was published, a campaign biography that was the functional equivalent of express advocacy, that could be banned?"
Olson picked up on Alito's incredulity in his brief to the court. "Enough is enough. When the government of the United States of America claims the authority to ban books because of their political speech, something has gone terribly wrong and it is as sure a sign as any that a return to first principles is in order," he said.
Olson is representing Citizens United, a conservative not-for-profit group that 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 justices could have decided the case on narrow grounds this year, saying for example that movies aired on-demand are exempt from campaign finance laws.
The call for new arguments to address the broader limits on corporate and union spending makes supporters of those laws nervous.
"This has the potential to unleash massive corporate spending," said Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer, a longtime proponent of limiting money in politics. "It would be a disaster for democracy."
,,,
The case is Citizens United v. FEC, 08-205.
“”This has the potential to unleash massive corporate spending,” said Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer, a longtime proponent of limiting money in politics. “It would be a disaster for democracy.”
I think it is predictable for a Democracy...it is a disaster for a Republic...
Jane and John Doe are about to be plowed under.......
Freedom is freedom. Live with it.
the wealthy are on the democrats side. How on earth was obama able to raise almost a billion dollars not including all the money going towards 521 groups. the democrats 521 groups are MUCH more well funded than the conservative side
Good analysis by Tony Mauro:
‘Hillary movie’ case: courtroom drama http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/analysis.aspx?id=22030
Why weren’t any of Fat Mikey’s “movies” pimping for the Marxist DemocRATS and demonizing conservative Republicans considered as “campaign ads?” This is flat weird.
Apparently these "Campaign laws" are ONLY to be applied to Conservatives.
Unions and Corporations can spend whatever they want but people cannot?
Thats just great...
In an UNRELATED note, the local Dick’s Sporting Goods store has .401 shotguns for sale- does anyone have experience with them? Is ammo expensive? I used to operate my dad’s re-loader when I was a kid, can you still do that or it is illegal now...?
“proponent of limiting money in politics. “It would be a disaster for democracy.””
How many millions did 0 garner totally unaccounted for and spent in who knows what ways. The most corrupt POS in US presidential history.
Isn’t this movie about how Clinton got illegal campaign money?
And all anyone in the MSM is worried about is this movie violating campaign laws...
who is hillereee?
oh, you mean hillereee clintin as in Mrs. clintin?
What is she doing these days??
THERE SHOULD BE ONLY ONCE SENTENCE CAMPAIGN LAW - TOTAL DISCLOSURE
YOU CAN ACCEPT ANY MONEY AT ALL FROM ANY PERSON OR ORGANIZATION AS LONG AS YOU FULLY DISCLOSE WHERE THE MONEY CAME FROM, AND THE SOURCES CAN BE IDENTIFIED
How hard is that?
Agree 100%
I think it is predictable for a Democracy...it is a disaster for a Republic..."This has the potential to unleash massive corporate spending," said Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer, a longtime proponent of limiting money in politics. "It would be a disaster for democracy."
If you parse the exemption McCain-Feingold carves out for "the press," you will find that it pretty much is an exemption for the Associated Press and its membership. Which would be fine, you may say - but the reality is that the AP is an institution which transformed the newspaper business from a legion of competitive printers who went to press weekly (or less in some cases), and who wore their politics on their sleeves with no pretense of quarantining opinion to a backwater part of the paper. Into the "objective" press of today, in which no reporter will ever, on any account, criticize any other reporter.The AP homogenized "the press," making its members mere fronts for itself and simultaneously making "the press" into an illegitimate title of nobility having privileges denied to, for example, FreeRepublic.com. WE MUST HAVE A FREE PRESS to compete with the "associated" press. "Campaign Finance Reform" is nothing but censorship to protect the establishment.
Even an insistence on full disclosure of campaign contributions is illegitimate; the Federalist Papers were published anonymously for the very "political" purpose of advancing the ratification of the Constitution. Was that illegitimate? By no means. Even the posters here on FR generally prefer to retain anonymity, and that is not a bad thing in general; Thomas Sowell noted that some truths can only be published "anonymously or posthumously."
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