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Companies could not lobby before Citizens United?
by pkaye 2y ago
Companies could not lobby before Citizens United?
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoYou're correct. This is unrelated to Citizens.
- arrosenberg 2y agoYes they could, but there were strict limits to it and people went to jail for violating them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff#Scandal_and_criminal_investigations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff#Scandal_and_crim... McConnell (yes that one) v FEC and Citizens United redefined the first amendment to include financial contributions as a form of speech and extended to for-profit corporations the same rights as individuals and civic associations.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoIsn't McConnell v FEC the SCOTUS ruling that upheld McCain-Feingold? The Act that Citizens overturned? To my understanding, this had zero effect on lobbying rules. Just campaign finance, namely, donations to candidates and donations to messaging operations.
- arrosenberg 2y agoIt didn't overturn the BRCA, but the minority in McConnell laid the groundwork for the Citizens United decision. O'Connor wasn't willing to hand the country over to oligarchs like Alito was.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoSure, but that still doesn't address whether Citizens spoke to lobbying rules. It was more about contributions and PACs.
- arrosenberg 2y agoIf you want to pretend you don't understand the relationship between lobbying and the ability of groups to spend unlimited money influencing politicians, that's your prerogative. I think more highly of you, so I'm not going to spend my time arguing the point.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> the relationship between lobbying and the ability of groups to spend unlimited money influencing politicians The point is this lobbying wouldn’t have been restricted by anything Citizens touched. OpenAI isn’t giving money to a PAC, it’s buying bog-standard lobbying hours. This is an adjacent but nevertheless separate issue.