2 ms·
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
by 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 agoAs 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 agoImagine 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 agoHow about reacting to what I actually wrote?
- snowwrestler 8y agoI 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 agoIf 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 agoOf 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 agoCitizens 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.
- snowwrestler 8y agoThere are no constraints on campaign spending. Trump spent like $60 million of his own money on his presidential campaign. There are limits on how much money any individual may give to a campaign that is not their own, and a prohibition against organizations (corporations, unions, etc) giving money to a campaign. Why? Because there is a difference between spending your own money to enable your own speech (independent expenditure, the subject of Citizens United), and giving your own money to someone else to spend however they want (direct contribution, whose limits Citizens United did not disturb).
- 8y ago