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> Citizens United has got to be one of the most misunderstood decisions of the Supreme Court. > If Citizens United loses that case, then there would be little

> Citizens United has got to be one of the most misunderstood decisions of the Supreme Court. > If Citizens United loses that case, then there would be little standing in the way of, for example, prohibiting the NY Times from running stories critical of presidential candidates within 90 days of the election. They could have decided the case on much narrower grounds. They could have returned it as improvidently granted. The majority wouldn't have had to conclude that "this Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption". I do think there were interesting 1A claims in play, and I don't know how to handle those well. But the decision as written is just naive.

snowwrestler 8y ago
The court had to rule that way to protect the First Amendment. Otherwise you're reasoning that it's "corrupt" to say something nice about someone out loud, just because that person might hear you and decide to be nice to you. Again: recall that The NY Times spends a lot of money to say things out loud every day.
- anarazel 8y ago
  As I said, I don't know the right answer about the 1A claim. I suspect a factually narrower ruling would have entirely been possible. But they definitely could have ruled exactly the same way without making the insane "do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption" comment. That's just entirely absurd, and I think it's fairly obvious that it factually is wrong. Nor did they have to rule the way they did in speechnow vs FEC, which is largely the case that people think about when talking about Citizens United.
  - snowwrestler 8y ago
    Imagine a law that says "you're free to speak, and spend money speaking, but if you mention an elected official, you might get prosecuted for corruption." How is that free speech?
    - anarazel 8y ago
      How about reacting to what I actually wrote?
      - snowwrestler 8y ago
        I am. I'm trying to illustrate why that opinion of the court is not actually absurd or insane. You might not like its implications, but there are other, worse, implications if merely speaking about a subject (e.g. a candidate) can be considered a form of corruption.
        rectang 8y ago
        If money is speech, then how are any constraints on campaign spending possible? But the Supreme Court has maintained some constraints, so it's a practical judgment call, balancing free speech against the potential for corruption. They didn't have to draw the line where they did in Citizens United.
        rayiner 8y ago
        Of course there can be restrictions on campaign spending (i.e. classical bribery). Free speech has never been a defense to crimes like bribery, fraud, etc., that incidentally involve speech. But the situation in Citizens United came nowhere close to that. It was core political speech. The money wasn't a campaign donation, it was used to create and distribute a political movie about a candidate. If the Supreme Court didn't draw the line there, it would have obliterated the line.
        rectang 8y ago
        Citizens United was 5-4, yet it was a sweeping decision that obliterated several decades of election law and bent political advertising expenditures to match the accelerating inequality of wealth distribution in the US. The world would not have ended if, as was originally expected, the court had made a more narrow ruling.
        8y ago
rectang 8y ago
Naive, or deliberately "business friendly"? Citizens United amplifies the power of those citizens who form corporations; government officials are now more likely to be responsive to their interests. This is consistent with the principle of "equal opportunity but not equal outcomes", in that any citizen can theoretically form a corporation, so it can be argued as not discriminatory. In practice it is the wealthy who are benefit from speaking with the voice of a corporation, and the power of non-corporate individual citizens is diminished correspondingly. But again, a consistent theme of conservatism is that freedoms of the wealthy should not be unduly constrained.
rayiner 8y ago
Those measures may have been appropriate if the case had presented some tangential issue of the first amendment. A corporation invoking free speech to try and worm out of some malfeasance. But Citizens United involves a flagrant attack on core political speech. The speaker was a political advocacy organization, no different than the NRDC or ACLU, and the speech was not money or some abstraction, it was a movie about a candidate running for political office. Punting on that case would’ve been a total abdication if the Supreme Court’s duty to protect free speech rights.

snowwrestler 8y ago

The court had to rule that way to protect the First Amendment. Otherwise you're reasoning that it's "corrupt" to say something nice about someone out loud, just because that person might hear you and decide to be nice to you. Again: recall that The NY Times spends a lot of money to say things out loud every day.

anarazel 8y ago
As I said, I don't know the right answer about the 1A claim. I suspect a factually narrower ruling would have entirely been possible. But they definitely could have ruled exactly the same way without making the insane "do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption" comment. That's just entirely absurd, and I think it's fairly obvious that it factually is wrong. Nor did they have to rule the way they did in speechnow vs FEC, which is largely the case that people think about when talking about Citizens United.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  Imagine a law that says "you're free to speak, and spend money speaking, but if you mention an elected official, you might get prosecuted for corruption." How is that free speech?
  - anarazel 8y ago
    How about reacting to what I actually wrote?
    - snowwrestler 8y ago
      I am. I'm trying to illustrate why that opinion of the court is not actually absurd or insane. You might not like its implications, but there are other, worse, implications if merely speaking about a subject (e.g. a candidate) can be considered a form of corruption.
      - rectang 8y ago
        If money is speech, then how are any constraints on campaign spending possible? But the Supreme Court has maintained some constraints, so it's a practical judgment call, balancing free speech against the potential for corruption. They didn't have to draw the line where they did in Citizens United.
        rayiner 8y ago
        Of course there can be restrictions on campaign spending (i.e. classical bribery). Free speech has never been a defense to crimes like bribery, fraud, etc., that incidentally involve speech. But the situation in Citizens United came nowhere close to that. It was core political speech. The money wasn't a campaign donation, it was used to create and distribute a political movie about a candidate. If the Supreme Court didn't draw the line there, it would have obliterated the line.
        rectang 8y ago
        Citizens United was 5-4, yet it was a sweeping decision that obliterated several decades of election law and bent political advertising expenditures to match the accelerating inequality of wealth distribution in the US. The world would not have ended if, as was originally expected, the court had made a more narrow ruling.
        8y ago

rectang 8y ago

Naive, or deliberately "business friendly"? Citizens United amplifies the power of those citizens who form corporations; government officials are now more likely to be responsive to their interests. This is consistent with the principle of "equal opportunity but not equal outcomes", in that any citizen can theoretically form a corporation, so it can be argued as not discriminatory. In practice it is the wealthy who are benefit from speaking with the voice of a corporation, and the power of non-corporate individual citizens is diminished correspondingly. But again, a consistent theme of conservatism is that freedoms of the wealthy should not be unduly constrained.

rayiner 8y ago

Those measures may have been appropriate if the case had presented some tangential issue of the first amendment. A corporation invoking free speech to try and worm out of some malfeasance. But Citizens United involves a flagrant attack on core political speech. The speaker was a political advocacy organization, no different than the NRDC or ACLU, and the speech was not money or some abstraction, it was a movie about a candidate running for political office. Punting on that case would’ve been a total abdication if the Supreme Court’s duty to protect free speech rights.