This has been a remarkable week starting with one man making a difference. No. Not president Obama. I refer to Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts.
We have just learned of another victory for the people. In this case I refer to a Press Release just in from the Institute for Justice relating to our first Amendment free speech rights. Following is the IJ Press Release.
INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE
901 N. GLEBE ROAD, SUITE 900 ARLINGTON, VA 22203 (703) 682-9320 FAX (703) 682-9321
HOME PAGE: WWW.IJ.ORG
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
January 21, 2010
U.S. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Free Speech In Citizens United Case
Today’s Ruling Lets Corporations Speak, But Other Battlefronts Remain
Arlington, Va.—Today, the U.S. Supreme Court announced a landmark victory for free speech, making clear in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that under the First Amendment the government cannot stifle dissent by restricting the right of corporations to spend money on independent political speech.
Justice Kennedy, writing for the Court, emphasized that the government’s ban on corporate speech was censorship, pure and simple: “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. This is unlawful.” He added, “The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”
“This is the most significant First Amendment decision from the Supreme Court in more than a decade,” said Steve Simpson, an Institute for Justice senior attorney who authored the Institute’s amicus brief in Citizens United. “The Court has finally struck down blatant censorship that masquerades as campaign finance reform. Slowly but surely, the Court is prying Americans’ free speech rights away from the hands of government bureaucrats. The words of the First Amendment—‘Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech’—demand nothing less.”
The Court overturned a case that had severely limited corporate political speech: Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which said that governments could ban corporations from independently speaking out about political candidates. It also overturned parts of McConnell v. FEC, which upheld a ban on “electioneering communications”—corporate- or union-funded broadcast ads that merely mention a candidate shortly before an election.
The Court did so because it recognized, as the Institute for Justice explained in its brief in the case, that speech bans like these inevitably embolden politicians and self-styled “reformers” to call for even more censorship, such as banning corporate-funded films about candidates, like the nonprofit Citizens United’s Hillary: The Movie, or even corporate-funded books if they attack or support a candidate.
In today’s opinion, the Court ruled that everyone, including corporations, has the right to speak out about issues and candidates. The government may not restrict the marketplace of ideas: “The civic discourse belongs to the people, and the Government may not prescribe the means used to conduct it.” In other words, the First Amendment rejects government paternalism, instead “entrusting the people to judge what is true and what is false.”
“Politicians hate criticism and so they sought to heavily regulate—if not ban—the most effective political speech against them,” said Chip Mellor, IJ’s president and general counsel. “Governments have aimed the campaign finance laws at corporations precisely because they can speak effectively. By overturning Austin and McConnell, the Court has taken a critical first step to restoring robust constitutional protections for free speech.”
In today’s decision, although the Court upheld the disclosure provisions that applied to Citizens United, it cited the amicus brief of the Institute for Justice in noting that the “threats, harassments, or reprisals” that disclosure of donors’ identities can generate are a “cause of concern.” Thus, the Court left open the possibility that other groups engaged in debate on controversial issues could successfully challenge the disclosure provisions.
So-Called “Fair Elections Now Act”
Anticipating today’s ruling, those advocating campaign finance restrictions have already begun promoting new regulations to “deal with” the freeing of more Americans to speak about politics. One proposal, the “Fair Elections Now Act” in Congress, would publicly fund the campaigns of those who run for federal office, while imposing a host of complicated regulations on candidates and their supporters. (For a 72-second video on FENA, visit: www.ij.org/FENAvideo.)
“Today, the Court made clear that under the First Amendment, free speech is not a problem to be solved with government bans and red-tape; it is a fundamental right enjoyed by all Americans,” said Simpson. “This is a message that congressional proponents of the so-called Fair Elections Now Act—yet another proposal by politicians to stifle speech that threatens their re-election—need to hear.”
Moreover, as IJ Senior Attorney Bert Gall noted, there is nothing to fear from corporate political speech: “Companies do not speak with one voice; instead, they represent a wide variety of viewpoints from across the ideological spectrum. So while Wal-Mart may speak out in favor of politicians who support health care reform, other retailers such as Whole Foods may do the opposite. And if Chrysler runs ads on behalf of candidates who won it favorable bankruptcy treatment, institutional investors whose bonds were rendered worthless can now criticize those same politicians. The result is a free-wheeling and uninhibited debate, which is just what the First Amendment is meant to provide.”
The Next Big Free Speech Cases
Two other cases will give the courts the opportunity to take additional steps toward freeing speech from burdensome and unnecessary campaign finance laws. SpeechNow.org v. FEC, which will be argued in front of the entire D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on January 27, 2010, involves a challenge to a federal law that forces people to sacrifice the First Amendment right to associate in order to exercise the First Amendment right to speak. SpeechNow.org is a group of citizens who wants to band together, pool resources and run ads favoring some candidates and opposing others. But while each person on his own could spend as much as he wants, the law says no one can contribute more than $5,000 to the joint effort. Along with the Center for Competitive Politics, IJ represents SpeechNow.org.
In Sampson v. Buescher, a group of neighbors who were sued for speaking out against the annexation of their neighborhood into a nearby town have challenged Colorado’s burdensome campaign finance regulations of ballot issue advocacy. Under Colorado law, groups that spend as little as $200 speaking for or against a ballot issue must register with the state and disclose the identities, addresses and often employers of anyone who contributes more than $20 to their cause. IJ represents the neighbors in the case, which is currently before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Institute for Justice defends First Amendment rights and challenges campaign finance laws nationwide. In May 2009, the Institute secured a federal court ruling striking down Florida’s electioneering communications law, and IJ previously won a ruling in the Washington Supreme Court that stopped an attempt to regulate media commentary as “in-kind” political contributions. IJ is currently challenging laws in Colorado that suppress speech about ballot issues by grassroots groups and nonprofit organizations, as well as Arizona’s “Clean Elections” law for funding political campaigns with taxpayer dollars. For more information, visit www.ij.org/FirstAmendment.
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Onward!
Christina Walsh
Director of Activism and Coalitions
Institute for Justice
901 N. Glebe Road, Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22203
(703) 682-9320
(703) 682-9321 (fax)
www.ij.org
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Twitter: @ChristinaWalsh
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Hot damn! As Rush just said, it’s PAYBACK TIME. Now if they’d just strike the rest of McCain-Feingold, it would be a great month.
This is NO VICTORY for democracy or free speech, it’s just one more step towards corporate fascism. Who do really think your elected officials will be beholden to now, you or their huge corporate bankrollers?
Justice Stevens wrote for the dissent; “although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it.”
Published on Thursday, January 21, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Corporate Personhood Should Be Banned, Once and For All
Outrageous SCOTUS Decision Should Reignite Most Necessary of Debates
by Ralph Nader
Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission shreds the fabric of our already weakened democracy by allowing corporations to more completely dominate our corrupted electoral process. It is outrageous that corporations already attempt to influence or bribe our political candidates through their political action committees (PACs), which solicit employees and shareholders for donations. With this decision, corporations can now also draw on their corporate treasuries and pour vast amounts of corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars.
This corporatist, anti-voter decision is so extreme that it should galvanize a grassroots effort to enact a Constitutional Amendment to once and for all end corporate personhood and curtail the corrosive impact of big money on politics. It is indeed time for a Constitutional amendment to prevent corporate campaign contributions from commercializing our elections and drowning out the civic and political voices and values of citizens and voters. It is way overdue to overthrow “King Corporation” and restore the sovereignty of “We the People”!
So, if unions do it is ok?
Well, bigmarkrod, it’s fair enough for unions to be regulated like corporations on this. And generally they are. But the power of unions in this nation is negligible compared to that of corporations (not that you’d know that reading the Orange Juice Blog) , so corporations are the major concern.
Brother Vern. “The power of unions in this nation is negligible” Did someone steal your name for that comment?
Have you been following the health care debate?
Are you aware of the Cadillac Plan? Just curious.
It’s weird, anonster, how these rightwingers identify with big corporations so completely that they cheer rulings like this as a victory “for the people.” It’s positively Orwellian.
What was that Taibbi wrote about the teabaggers last April…
“It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger. And that’s what we’ve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish…”
Big Mark.
I called and left a message for Wayne LaPierre on this ruling as he’s on the road.
Insider baseball.
Wayne is CEO of the NRA for those not familiar with that 2nd Amendment organization. We discussed this very issue with him in Mission Viejo a few years ago on the Cutting Edge.
Before you all spin yourself up over the fiction that Citizens United gives free speech right but muzzles corporations, understand that it applies equally to unions as it does to corporations.
The state may no more ban the speech of unions than it may corporations. (However, the court has held that measures like Citizen Power Initiative are not bans.)
I know that Rogue, I know that. And Larry I stand by what I wrote. The unions are fighting hard to prevent the taxation of their “cadillac plans” or “Chevy plans” as the case may be – health plans they had accepted in many cases in lieu of pay raises – but this seems to be what the Senate insists on for paying for healthcare reform, instead of the House’s more progressive tax on the top 1% of income earners.
It’s laughable to pretend unions have anything like the power of corporations or the wealthy in general, but I know that’s an article of religious faith among you lot.
Yes, but no union has the power of one multinational corporation. Corporations, not unions, control all of the media in this country. That alone gives corporations an unfair advantage. In fact, the image of the all powerful union was mostly created by the corporate media. They want to muzzle all organized dissent. Union membership has been diminishing over the last few decades and is now confined mostly to the public sector. Meanwhile, corporate control is increasing in every aspect of our society.
The control and dominance of corporate media, in all its forms, is limiting public discourse. The repetition of one side of a message via corporate media does not serve the truth. The truth is found when one listens to both sides of an argument to evaluate the merits of both.
Corporations are not interested in truth just in getting their skewed narrow message to consumers. They do not care about the public as people. Yes, they see us solely as consumers and plot how to obtain our votes and money.
The relative glee Republicans are expressing over this and the relative angst Democrats are expressing tells you all you need to know about which party stands to benefit more from an empowered Corporate “voice”. After what this country has been through economically over the past couple years, why anyone would celebrate this ruling is beyond me.