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Who claimed it was?
Regulating corporations mostly falls to the various states, whose creatures they are. I wouldn't expect to find very much about powers reserved to the states in the US Cons ution.
Who claimed it was?
For someone who insists so priggishly on argumentative rigor, your own resort to strawmen and lame appeals to authority is dissonantly easy and frequent in these pages. You can't get through a single discussion without exaggerating what other people say. Telling.
Last edited by Winehole23; 01-23-2010 at 04:50 PM.
Free speech is not something states decide on.
Americans have cause to rejoice in the Supreme Court’s landmark decision reaffirming our freedom of association and our freedom of speech. In Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, the majority of the Court, led by Justice Kennedy, reaffirmed “ancient First Amendment principles.” It specifically overruled a prior decision in which the Court had upheld a state restriction in Michigan that banned corporations -- including nonprofits -- from engaging in independent political expenditures. The Court overturned a similar provision in federal law, striking a decisive blow against the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance restrictions, one of the worst abridgments of the First Amendment since the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.
The Founders wrote the First Amendment specifically to protect free speech for the purposes of political advocacy and criticism. The Cons ution provides that “Congress shall make no law” abridging that right. But that is precisely what Congress did by restricting the right of Citizens United, a nonprofit corporation, to release a do entary film critical of Hillary Clinton while she was a candidate for president. Fortunately, the Court held that the government does not have the right to distinguish between different classes of speakers and to disfavor some of them, such as corporations. The provisions of the law acted as an outright ban on some kinds of speech, and they set up a complex regulatory framework for others, limiting them in a way the Supreme Court found equivalent to a prior restraint on communication. The law also gave the FEC the power to decide what political speech was allowed and to punish those who violated the law with severe civil and criminal penalties.
The idea that the government ought to be empowered to punish any party for engaging in political speech is not only a violation of the First Amendment, it is a fundamental affront to the founding principles of our republic. As Justice Kennedy wrote, speech is an essential mechanism in a democracy, helping to hold public officials accountable to the people. For that reason, the right of free political speech must prevail against laws that suppress it or impose such a burden on it that criticism, advocacy, and debate are stifled.
It speaks volumes about the so-called campaign-finance reformers, and their at udes toward our cons utional rights, that they are positively apoplectic over this decision. Rep. Alan Grayson (D., Fla.), the Left’s epitome of decorum and nuanced thinking, calls Citizens United v. FEC “the worst Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case.” Senator Feingold is demanding new campaign-finance legislation, while Senator Schumer wants congressional hearings on the possibility of limiting the decision’s application. Representative Grayson’s comment, and the fevered reaction among his fellow Democrats, suggests a thin commitment to the Bill of Rights and our most basic freedoms.
It is worth noting that the four liberal members of the Supreme Court, led by Justice Stevens, were so willing to give a free hand to government censors that they wrote a 90-page dissent in which they attempt to justify allowing the government to decide who has the right to engage in political speech and on what terms. A 5-4 decision: Bear that in mind when the next vacancy on the Court comes up.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...QxN2Q0NzAzMjk=
Saying blocking corporations from financing their corrupted candidates is respecting the 1st amendment
is exactly like saying
guns for everybody, everywhere is respecting the 2nd amendment.
Conservatives and righties promote their self-enriching strategies, by hiding their agendas behind the Cons ution, like the scamming Bible-thumpers promote their self-enriching, self-empowering strategies by hiding behind the Bible.
Somebody leave the prosac out of your cheerios this morning?
McConnel just said on Meet the Press that GE, owner of NBC, can say whatever they want up to the last minute of the election. That is a great example of the biproduct of finance reform.
You do realize NBC is news organization don't you?
Sorry I didn't say McConnel said before the decision this is what could happen. It creates an incentive for corp to buy a media outlet. GE could push pro-green candidates and at the same time buy green energy companies. PACs could hide where the money was coming from, where as now there will be more disclosure. I douubt the amount of political money coming from corp will increase.
I'm just waiting for the night before an election where an ad lies about a candidate which then in turn affects an election.This is not a partisan issue for me.
It's not a partisan issue...
it's a free speech issue.
"well, we can have free speech, up until an election where we'll suspend for a bit. We can't have total free speech during such an important event as an election...someone might lie y'know."
...and so it goes.
"free speech issue"
We smart ones knows better than you simpletons, that it's not simply, only a free speech issue.
Simplifying it to only free speech is a typical, fundamental lie that supports all conservatives positions.
It's also about overturning the will of the states and the US Congress to limit corporate participation in elections. The notion that corporate free speech and access to political process was unduly hindered before this ruling is laughable.
This ruling is a solution in search of a problem.
Last edited by Winehole23; 01-24-2010 at 03:03 PM.
Should the FEC be able to stop the publishing of a book because it is near an election and has a politician's name?
No.
It's not my position that McCain-Feingold was a good law or even that this decision was wrongly taken, though it appears the court did not exercise judicial restraint and went far beyond the questions before it.
Regrettably, I concur with mogrovejo that the solution to overweaning corporate influence probably can't be restrictions of speech.
Last edited by Winehole23; 01-25-2010 at 09:29 AM. Reason: probably
This is pretty tight summary
Court's campaign finance decision a case of shoddy scholarship
By Ruth Marcus
Saturday, January 23, 2010; A13
In opening the floodgates for corporate money in election campaigns, the Supreme Court did not simply engage in a brazen power grab. It did so in an opinion stunning in its intellectual dishonesty.
Many of those commenting on the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission have focused on the power-grab part. I agree with them. It was unnecessary for the court to go so far when there were several less-radical grounds available. It was audacious to seize the opportunity to overrule precedents when the parties had not pressed this issue and the lower courts had not considered it. It was the height of activism to usurp the judgments of Congress and state legislatures about how best to prevent corruption of the political process.
"If it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more," a wise judge once wrote. That was Chief Justice John G. Roberts -- back when -- and dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens rightly turned that line against him.
As bad as the court's activism, though, was its shoddy scholarship.
First, the majority flung about dark warnings of "censorship" and "banned" speech as if upholding the existing rules would leave corporations and labor unions with no voice in the political process. Untrue.
Under federal election law before the Supreme Court demolished it, corporations and labor unions were free to say whatever they wanted about political candidates whenever they wanted to say it. They simply were not permitted to use unlimited general treasury funds to do so. Instead, they were required to use money raised by their political action committees from employees and members. This is hardly banning speech.
Second, in the face of logic and history, the majority acted as if there could be no cons utional distinction between a corporation and a human being. Untrue. The Supreme Court has long held that corporations are considered "persons" under the Cons ution and are therefore en led to its protections. For more than a century, Congress has barred corporations from making direct contributions to political candidates, with no suggestion that it must treat corporate persons the same as real ones; that prohibition stands, at least for now. The "conceit" of corporate personhood, as Stevens called it, does not mandate absolute equivalence. That corporations enjoy free-speech protections does not mean they enjoy every protection afforded an actual person. Is a corporation en led to vote? To run for office?
Third, misreading its precedents and cherry-picking quotations, the majority acted as if the chief case it overturned was an outlier. In that 1990 case, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a six-member majority came to the unsurprising conclusion that a state law prohibiting corporations from making unlimited independent expenditures from their general funds was cons utional.
The court dismissed this ruling as "a significant departure from ancient First Amendment principles." Again, untrue.
In a 1982 case, the court -- in a unanimous opinion by then-Justice William Rehnquist -- noted that Congress, in writing campaign finance law, was en led to "considerable deference" in taking into account "the particular legal and economic attributes of corporations and labor organizations" and had made "a permissible assessment of the dangers posed by those en ies to the electoral process." Four years later, even as it carved out an exception for nonprofit corporations, the court reaffirmed "the need to restrict the influence of political war chests funneled through the corporate form."
The Citizens United majority relied heavily on a 1978 case overturning a Massachusetts law that prohibited corporations from spending their own money to defeat certain referendums. But that decision specifically noted that "a corporation's right to speak on issues of general public interest implies no comparable right in the quite different context of participation in a political campaign for election to public office."
Fourth, the majority bizarrely invoked the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" defense. Under the Austin ruling, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy argued, lawmakers unhappy with being lampooned in the movie "could have done more than discourage its distribution -- they could have banned the film." Beyond untrue. There is no scenario under which works of art about fictional lawmakers could be limited by campaign finance laws.
That the majority would stoop to this claim underscores the weakness of its case -- and the audacity of the result it has inflicted on the political process.
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Unsubstantiated, and counterintuitive.
Last edited by Winehole23; 01-25-2010 at 09:41 AM.
should the Washington Post be banned from reporting or endorsing a candidate since it owned by a corporation?
The Washington Post Company (NYSE:WPO) is an American education and media company, best known for owning the newspaper it is named after, The Washington Post. The Company also owns Kaplan, Inc., a leading international provider of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses. In addition, the Company owns Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (WPNI), the online publishing subsidiary whose flagship products include washingtonpost.com, Newsweek.com, Slate.com, BudgetTravel.com and Sprig.com; Express; El Tiempo Latino; The Gazette and Southern Maryland newspapers; The Herald (Everett, WA); Newsweek magazine; Post-Newsweek Stations (Detroit, Houston, Miami, Orlando, San Antonio and Jacksonville); Cable One, a cable TV and Internet service provider with subscribers in midwestern, western and southern states; and CourseAdvisor, an online lead generation provider.
The Washington Post Company history dates back to 1877, when the Post was first published. The Washington Post Company was incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1889[1], and remained a District of Columbia corporation until it changed its state of incorporation to Delaware in 2003.[2] It is a public company, trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol WPO, and went public in 1971. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. Apart from the family of the late Katharine Graham, Berkshire Hathaway is also a substantial shareholder.
Nobody should be banned from speaking.
Period.
This is not hard folks.
Certain types of speech should be banned: yelling fire in a crowded building, cussing around children. But no kind of political speech should be banned. This was just another form of the Alien Sedition Act, and it was a shame it has become a political party argument.
Last edited by Winehole23; 02-02-2010 at 05:09 PM. Reason: v
I can't find it now but there was a reaction last Aug or so when SC put this case on their docket. Several observers thought it the SC was moving very fast in comparison with other cases.
My guess it the politicized(untrustworthy, unrespectable) radical extreme right activist conservatives wanted to have corps polluting elections and disenfranchising voters definitely well in advance of the 2010 elections, must like they said, arbitrarily, with false haste, said they couldn't wait for FL to complete its counting and overrrode the FL legislature.
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