Litigation

?Citizens United:? Media Reports

By Peter Hardin

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, overturned precedents and ruled Thursday that corporations may spend from their treasuries to support or oppose federal candidates. The decision dealt a partial defeat for election reformers.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, saying “The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach,” according to an Associated Press Article.

“We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers,” Justice Kennedy wrote, according to a Reuters article.

Justice John Paul Stevens, in dissent, wrote, “The court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation.”

The decision left intact a ban on corporations and unions making direct contributions to candidates. It ruled that disclosure requirements for corporate election spending are constitutional.

It overturned a 20-year ruling that upheld a prohibition on corporations spending from their general treasuries for campaign advertising, and struck down a portion of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that prohibited corporations and unions from paying for issue advertising in the final days of elections.

The ruling “will transform the political landscape and the rules on how money can be spent in this year’s congressional election and the 2012 presidential contest,” according to Reuters. It “was a doctrinal earthquake but also a political and practical one,” the New York Times wrote.

A wide range of media articles, and advocates’ comments, is available in a round-up at the Washington Post. Other insights are availalbe at www.scotusblog.com.  Running comments by election law expert Rick Hasen are posted in www.electionlawblog.com.

The high court effectively “swept away decades of legisltive efforts to restrict the role of corporations in election campaigns, ruling that severe restrictions on corporate spending are inconsistent with the First Amendment’s protection of political speech,” reported the Washington Post.

The newspaper pointed out the speech with which the high court can change, noting that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who subsequently has retired, backed in 2003 the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold law; but her replacement, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., and Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. have sided with challenges to the law.

Thursday’s decision ” is probably the most sweeping and consequential handed down under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.,” in the assessment of the Los Angeles Times.

Not only are federal elections affected by the ruling, but “it also calls into question similar provisions enacted by nearly half the states,” the Wall Street Journal noted.

The decision represented a defeat for the Obama administration and supporters of the 2002 McCain-Feingold law, who had voiced fears that overturning limits could open the floodgates to corporate spending in the U.S. election system.

Justices issued the ruling at a rare Thursday session. The five separate opinions making up the decision amounted to more than 175 pages.

The case initially focused on a documentary movie attacking then-presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, but the Supreme Court expanded its scope before holding a re-argument in September.

As noted in Justice at Stake’s statement (see earlier posting), Justice Stevens cited a Justice at Stake amicus brief, and noted the peril today’s ruling could pose for elected state courts:

?[T]he consequences of today?s holding will not be limited to the legislative or executive context. The majority of the States select their judges through popular elections. At a time when concerns about the conduct of judicial elections have reached a fever pitch, see, e.g., O?Connor, Justice for Sale, Wall St. Journal, Nov. 15, 2007, p. A25; Brief for Justice at Stake et al. as Amici Curiae 2, the Court today unleashes the floodgates of corporate and union general treasury spending in these races. Perhaps ?Caperton motions? will catch some of the worst abuses. This will be small comfort to those States that, after today, may no longer have the ability to place modest limits on corporate electioneering even if they believe such limits to be critical to maintaining the integrity of their judicial systems.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 21, 2010 (boomark / email).