6 ms·

I know the reasoning. It was a (very) novel interpretation of the constitution (both the extension of corporate personhood and the notion of money-as-speech we

I know the reasoning. It was a (very) novel interpretation of the constitution (both the extension of corporate personhood and the notion of money-as-speech were completely new tricks) that allowed it. Again, it's just excuse-making. If you don't want to do something you write a narrow opinion and put the responsibility on congress to provide specificity. If you want to do something big you throw out a law based on the constitution. In this case, they held the way they did because they did not want to write a broad finding, and absolutely not because their hands were bound by some imaginary principle.

racnid 6y ago
If one person has a right to free speech then logically groups of people have rights to free speech, there's really no other way to look at that.
Meekro 6y ago
Citizens United (the group) was a non-profit advocacy group that wanted to publish a video critical of a politician. The government wanted to stop that video from being published. That is not money-as-speech, it's speech-as-speech.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Citizen's United (the case) held that any government restriction on political spending was presumptively illegal and in violation of the first amendment. That is exactly my point. It was NOT a narrow ruling tailored toward the needs of PACs trying to avoid censorship. It was a extremely broad ruling throwing out the whole concept of campaign finance regulation.
- hypersoar 6y ago
  This is a common and misleading description. I encourage you to read the decision and at least part of Stevens's dissent (which is twice as long as the decision itself). I know it's a lot of pages, but it's got big fat margins. Now. (Reposting a comment I made elsewhere) Before Citizens United, any US majority-owned corporation or union was allowed to make political contributions from a segregated fund. The money in that fund could only come from employees and shareholders. This was, in decades of previous legislation and case law, considered sufficient to protect the 1st Amendment interests of associations of individuals. They can pool their money together for political purposes, put they can't pool it with other people's money. Before the ruling, Citizens United was allowed to spend money on political activity. They were allowed to spend money on political activity close to an election. They were allowed to spend money, close to an election, to broadcast issue-based political advertisement (e.g., for or against a ballot initiative) on TV. They were allowed to spend money distributing their documentary in any way other than broadcasting it on TV. They could show it in theaters. They could put it on the internet. They could print DVDs and mail them out. They could distribute it to PACs and campaigns for them to spend their own money distributing it, including broadcasting by on TV. They could pay money, close to an election, from a segregated fund, to broadcast their documentary on TV. All they weren't allowed to do was spend money, close to an election, on broadcasting something expressing views for or against a political candidate, on television or radio, to an audience of at least 50,000, close to the election. Corporations were not banned from electioneering before Citizens United. They were restricted. The laws imposing those restrictions went back until at least the early 1900s. There was a century of case law find some such restrictions constitutional. There was a decision in 2003, just 7 years before Citizens United, upholding the very restrictions that CU struck down. The majority's argument rested on the idea that no "identity-based" restrictions on 1st-Amendment rights are constitutional. But there are such restrictions, e.g. against prisoners, students, and employees of the executive branch. These restrictions remain in place today. The majority invented a 1st-Amendment principle and then selectively applied it to corporations. They did so with no fact-finding in the record of the case on whether the provisions they struck down actually chilled free speech. Fact-finding that the government wanted to do before Citizens United (the organization) dropped the issue. The majority in Citizens United flipped the table on decades of election law that had survived scrutiny several times before without even claiming that any circumstances had changed. They did it solely because they didn't like the outcome. And they bent over backwards to do it.
otterley 6y ago
What is so novel about holding that the First Amendment means what it says about the rights of freedom of speech and to peaceably assemble?
- newacct583 6y ago
  Because it holds that right applies to the ability to pay for media space and not to speak or assemble, and to be done by a PAC, not a person.
  - otterley 6y ago
    How do you think assemblies of people get together to speak who can’t all be in the same place at the same time? They have been paying spokespeople since time immemorial.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      I don't think anyone here is interested in debating the merits of Citizen's from first principles. Suffice it to say that your reasoning is not the one the court chose, so I don't know where you're going with this. My point was simply the wording above: the court CHOSE to issue a very broad decision in Citizen's, just as it chose NOT to issue one here. And the reason is just simple desire and not any kind of principle. The court wanted to, and that's as far as it goes. You see the same skew in logic in arguments about Roe, where the same people (like you) who think Citizen's is fine for throwing out huge regulatory areas based on a novel reading of the constitution suddenly think it's "judicial activism" to find a right to medical privacy in the due process clause.
      - otterley 6y ago
        I was merely responding to your specific comment which seemed to suggest that a holding that groups have First Amendment rights and that they can pay people to represent them was somehow novel. “It was a (very) novel interpretation of the constitution (both the extension of corporate personhood and the notion of money-as-speech were completely new tricks) that allowed it.” There is an enormous volume of prior case law that says the same thing.
ravi-delia 6y ago
This may be totally untrue, but I had a history professor who said that when a company made an argument that it had equal protection under the law from the 15th Amendment, they managed to hire the only living writer of the amendment as their lawyer. Given that it was written under secrecy, his word was all anyone had to go on. Regardless, the Citizen's United decision was actually pretty clearly pro-free speech, and abuses by companies may well be cleaned up as time goes on and more cases reach the Supreme Court (or so said Scalia when I asked him, honestly it did sound like he was a little embarrassed about how his opinion turned out)
- alexeldeib 6y ago
  > or so said Scalia when I asked him When you asked him about it? That piqued my interest, what was the context? Why'd he seem embarrassed? The name drop begs for more details :)
- ikiris 6y ago
  I don't believe that Scalia has ever been embarassed by his blatant intellectual dishonesty in efforts to justify a conclusion he'd like to reach.
  - memling 6y ago
    > his blatant intellectual dishonesty Sincerely curious: do you have examples? Scalia's a controversial justice, to say the least, for a variety of reasons, but I don't quite understand this criticism. (I do understand not liking his jurisprudence or his abrasive style.) He and Justice Ginsburg, for example, were famous friends while holding opposite opinions about how to interpret and read the U.S. Constitution; one would think she would've called him out on blatant dishonesty (intellectual or otherwise)
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > but I had a history professor who said that when a company made an argument that it had equal protection under the law from the 15th Amendment, That seems...implausible: Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. > they managed to hire the only living writer of the amendment as their lawyer. Given that it was written under secrecy, his word was all anyone had to go on. The Court (and courts in general) don't tend to look to authorial intent as the original intent that matters, but legislative intent (the intent of the body/(-ies) adopting the provision.) So, the word of the “only living author” wouldn’t be the only thing anyone had to go on; they’d have the records of legislative debates. And an authorial position (even if well-documwnted) that wasn't actively considered in legislative debate would probably not be considered to have much weight.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> It was a (very) novel interpretation of the constitution (both the extension of corporate personhood and the notion of money-as-speech were completely new tricks) No they weren't. Money as speech, for instance, was a bedrock of earlier campaign finance decisions stretching back at least to Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/424/1/#tab-opinion-1951589 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/424/1/#tab-opini...
simonh 6y ago
Corporate personhood is a very long established legal concept. It even pre-dates the foundation of the USA, with the principle found in India well over 2000 years ago and in the legal status of Medieval guilds. There is nothing novel about it. The very word corporation derives from the Latin "corpus" or body. I'm a Brit so have not particular standing in this. If I were a US citizen I would deplore the Citizen's United decision, but not on the grounds of corporate personhood (which as I understand it was never mentioned in the ruling), but rather on the grounds that religious freedom should not grant special rights and privileges not available otherwise. It should be a freedom of belief, not a freedom of action.
- mrkstu 6y ago
  Religious freedom (of either type) isn'† relevant in any way to Citizen United as far as I'm aware- can you clarify the nature of your objection?

racnid 6y ago

If one person has a right to free speech then logically groups of people have rights to free speech, there's really no other way to look at that.

Meekro 6y ago

Citizens United (the group) was a non-profit advocacy group that wanted to publish a video critical of a politician. The government wanted to stop that video from being published. That is not money-as-speech, it's speech-as-speech.

newacct583 6y ago
Citizen's United (the case) held that any government restriction on political spending was presumptively illegal and in violation of the first amendment. That is exactly my point. It was NOT a narrow ruling tailored toward the needs of PACs trying to avoid censorship. It was a extremely broad ruling throwing out the whole concept of campaign finance regulation.
hypersoar 6y ago
This is a common and misleading description. I encourage you to read the decision and at least part of Stevens's dissent (which is twice as long as the decision itself). I know it's a lot of pages, but it's got big fat margins. Now. (Reposting a comment I made elsewhere) Before Citizens United, any US majority-owned corporation or union was allowed to make political contributions from a segregated fund. The money in that fund could only come from employees and shareholders. This was, in decades of previous legislation and case law, considered sufficient to protect the 1st Amendment interests of associations of individuals. They can pool their money together for political purposes, put they can't pool it with other people's money. Before the ruling, Citizens United was allowed to spend money on political activity. They were allowed to spend money on political activity close to an election. They were allowed to spend money, close to an election, to broadcast issue-based political advertisement (e.g., for or against a ballot initiative) on TV. They were allowed to spend money distributing their documentary in any way other than broadcasting it on TV. They could show it in theaters. They could put it on the internet. They could print DVDs and mail them out. They could distribute it to PACs and campaigns for them to spend their own money distributing it, including broadcasting by on TV. They could pay money, close to an election, from a segregated fund, to broadcast their documentary on TV. All they weren't allowed to do was spend money, close to an election, on broadcasting something expressing views for or against a political candidate, on television or radio, to an audience of at least 50,000, close to the election. Corporations were not banned from electioneering before Citizens United. They were restricted. The laws imposing those restrictions went back until at least the early 1900s. There was a century of case law find some such restrictions constitutional. There was a decision in 2003, just 7 years before Citizens United, upholding the very restrictions that CU struck down. The majority's argument rested on the idea that no "identity-based" restrictions on 1st-Amendment rights are constitutional. But there are such restrictions, e.g. against prisoners, students, and employees of the executive branch. These restrictions remain in place today. The majority invented a 1st-Amendment principle and then selectively applied it to corporations. They did so with no fact-finding in the record of the case on whether the provisions they struck down actually chilled free speech. Fact-finding that the government wanted to do before Citizens United (the organization) dropped the issue. The majority in Citizens United flipped the table on decades of election law that had survived scrutiny several times before without even claiming that any circumstances had changed. They did it solely because they didn't like the outcome. And they bent over backwards to do it.

otterley 6y ago

What is so novel about holding that the First Amendment means what it says about the rights of freedom of speech and to peaceably assemble?

newacct583 6y ago
Because it holds that right applies to the ability to pay for media space and not to speak or assemble, and to be done by a PAC, not a person.
- otterley 6y ago
  How do you think assemblies of people get together to speak who can’t all be in the same place at the same time? They have been paying spokespeople since time immemorial.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    I don't think anyone here is interested in debating the merits of Citizen's from first principles. Suffice it to say that your reasoning is not the one the court chose, so I don't know where you're going with this. My point was simply the wording above: the court CHOSE to issue a very broad decision in Citizen's, just as it chose NOT to issue one here. And the reason is just simple desire and not any kind of principle. The court wanted to, and that's as far as it goes. You see the same skew in logic in arguments about Roe, where the same people (like you) who think Citizen's is fine for throwing out huge regulatory areas based on a novel reading of the constitution suddenly think it's "judicial activism" to find a right to medical privacy in the due process clause.
    - otterley 6y ago
      I was merely responding to your specific comment which seemed to suggest that a holding that groups have First Amendment rights and that they can pay people to represent them was somehow novel. “It was a (very) novel interpretation of the constitution (both the extension of corporate personhood and the notion of money-as-speech were completely new tricks) that allowed it.” There is an enormous volume of prior case law that says the same thing.

ravi-delia 6y ago

This may be totally untrue, but I had a history professor who said that when a company made an argument that it had equal protection under the law from the 15th Amendment, they managed to hire the only living writer of the amendment as their lawyer. Given that it was written under secrecy, his word was all anyone had to go on. Regardless, the Citizen's United decision was actually pretty clearly pro-free speech, and abuses by companies may well be cleaned up as time goes on and more cases reach the Supreme Court (or so said Scalia when I asked him, honestly it did sound like he was a little embarrassed about how his opinion turned out)

alexeldeib 6y ago
> or so said Scalia when I asked him When you asked him about it? That piqued my interest, what was the context? Why'd he seem embarrassed? The name drop begs for more details :)
ikiris 6y ago
I don't believe that Scalia has ever been embarassed by his blatant intellectual dishonesty in efforts to justify a conclusion he'd like to reach.
- memling 6y ago
  > his blatant intellectual dishonesty Sincerely curious: do you have examples? Scalia's a controversial justice, to say the least, for a variety of reasons, but I don't quite understand this criticism. (I do understand not liking his jurisprudence or his abrasive style.) He and Justice Ginsburg, for example, were famous friends while holding opposite opinions about how to interpret and read the U.S. Constitution; one would think she would've called him out on blatant dishonesty (intellectual or otherwise)
dragonwriter 6y ago
> but I had a history professor who said that when a company made an argument that it had equal protection under the law from the 15th Amendment, That seems...implausible: Section 1 The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2 The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. > they managed to hire the only living writer of the amendment as their lawyer. Given that it was written under secrecy, his word was all anyone had to go on. The Court (and courts in general) don't tend to look to authorial intent as the original intent that matters, but legislative intent (the intent of the body/(-ies) adopting the provision.) So, the word of the “only living author” wouldn’t be the only thing anyone had to go on; they’d have the records of legislative debates. And an authorial position (even if well-documwnted) that wasn't actively considered in legislative debate would probably not be considered to have much weight.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> It was a (very) novel interpretation of the constitution (both the extension of corporate personhood and the notion of money-as-speech were completely new tricks) No they weren't. Money as speech, for instance, was a bedrock of earlier campaign finance decisions stretching back at least to Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/424/1/#tab-opinion-1951589 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/424/1/#tab-opini...

simonh 6y ago

Corporate personhood is a very long established legal concept. It even pre-dates the foundation of the USA, with the principle found in India well over 2000 years ago and in the legal status of Medieval guilds. There is nothing novel about it. The very word corporation derives from the Latin "corpus" or body. I'm a Brit so have not particular standing in this. If I were a US citizen I would deplore the Citizen's United decision, but not on the grounds of corporate personhood (which as I understand it was never mentioned in the ruling), but rather on the grounds that religious freedom should not grant special rights and privileges not available otherwise. It should be a freedom of belief, not a freedom of action.

mrkstu 6y ago
Religious freedom (of either type) isn'† relevant in any way to Citizen United as far as I'm aware- can you clarify the nature of your objection?