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The Era of Citizens United Could Be Nearing Its End

26 points by Tomte 6mo ago

voidfunc 6mo ago
This won't go anywhere. Too much influence at stake. The court will just decline.
toss1 6mo ago
Another, probably better method that avoids SCOTUS to overturn Citizen's United is going back to the source — the fact that states create corporations and specify their allowed activities — and amending state corporate-charter law to strip corporations of the enumerated power to spend on elections or ballot issues. AFAIK, bills are already in progress in Montana, Maine, and I just heard about one in Hawaii too. If anyone has more info, please post.
- delichon 6mo ago
  In Citizens United Kennedy held that government can't regulate speech by identity, not just individual or corporate, but by any form of organization. A state cannot evade that decision by revising the form. It was already considered unconstitutional to legislate based on the content of speech. Citizens United added the identity of the speaker. the worth of speech “does not depend upon the identity of its source, whether corporation, association, union, or individual” -- https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/310/
  - toss1 6mo ago
    Yes, and it seems part of the work-around here is not that it is restricting the ability of the corporations to speak, they can say what they want, but by limiting the ability to spend money, especially money that is invisible. It seems to be more of a transparency act than a constraint [0]. Even this would be helpful as it would prevent corporations from saying one thing while they spend millions to elect candidates to do the opposite. At least now their activities would be public and they could be called out. From the article: >> The key, Mangan said, is about transparency. He said the current system allows private corporations to be established and collect money, but to keep those donors and the amounts hidden from public view. Those corporations, which can consist with as few as one donor, can give to candidates and causes under the corporation name, although the people supporting that corporation and the amount of money donated are unknown, leading to the term “dark money.” >> The change in Montana law would simply not grant the corporations the power to give to candidates or causes, but would allow individuals to give, but those donations would be tracked. [0] https://dailymontanan.com/2025/08/01/group-releases-text-of-proposed-montana-constitutional-amendment-to-curb-dark-money/ https://dailymontanan.com/2025/08/01/group-releases-text-of-...
jmclnx 6mo ago
Pretty bad these days the outcome of a court case will depend upon what political party will be put at a disadvantage. Even this article tryed to frame the case as "no political party will be disadvantaged". There is no law in the US these days.
atmavatar 6mo ago
I find the idea that the current Roberts court would issue a ruling reducing corruption a laughable proposition. Roberts, Alito, and Thomas were part of the original majority in the Citizens United v. FEC decision, and I have a hard time believing more than one of Barrett, Kavanaugh, or Gorsuch would break ranks in a similar case. But perhaps more importantly, several justices on the court have also since been revealed to have accepted undisclosed gifts (i.e., bribes) for decades (Thomas being the largest offender). Worse, the justices failed to recuse themselves from cases involving those who'd provided said gifts. Even worse, once the story broke about the undisclosed gifts, the Roberts court rejected the idea of independent ethics review for the court's members, insisting it could continue to be trusted to police itself despite the revelations of its own corruption. The Roberts court is a very pro-corruption court.
- akramachamarei 6mo ago
  Do you have examples of cases where gift-receiving judges should have recused? I tried looking into Thomas (the biggest news story) and ProPublica is very outright that the gift giver (Harlan Crowe) has not been involved in a Supreme Court case since Thomas was on it. The issue people seem to be focusing on is disclosure, the conversation doesn't seem to be at recusal.
  - cherry_tree 6mo ago
    The Supreme Court rules on things like the chevron doctrine which allows the executive agencies to implement and enforce regulations across all industries. Does Harlan crowe do business in one of “all” industries? There is of course the topic of the article, citizens united which gave Crowe the ability to massively influence politics. Cases in the Supreme Court affect everyone in the country because it defines or redefines the law with every decision. To even begin the train of thought that a billionaire could be unaffected by _all previous supreme court opinions_ is just strange.
    - akramachamarei 6mo ago
      > To even begin the train of thought that a billionaire could be unaffected by all previous supreme court opinions is just strange. Yeah, that is strange. I'm curious why you brought it up.
rawgabbit 6mo ago
Instead of directly challenging the legality of this dark money, it may be better to force transparency. For every donation over a thousand dollars, the donor must register it with the FEC else they are in jeopardy of civil fines and other civil penalties. In the case of an organization donating the money, they must disclose the source of the money similar to Sarbannes Oxley.

26 points by Tomte 6mo ago

This won't go anywhere. Too much influence at stake. The court will just decline.

toss1 6mo ago

Another, probably better method that avoids SCOTUS to overturn Citizen's United is going back to the source — the fact that states create corporations and specify their allowed activities — and amending state corporate-charter law to strip corporations of the enumerated power to spend on elections or ballot issues. AFAIK, bills are already in progress in Montana, Maine, and I just heard about one in Hawaii too. If anyone has more info, please post.

delichon 6mo ago
In Citizens United Kennedy held that government can't regulate speech by identity, not just individual or corporate, but by any form of organization. A state cannot evade that decision by revising the form. It was already considered unconstitutional to legislate based on the content of speech. Citizens United added the identity of the speaker. the worth of speech “does not depend upon the identity of its source, whether corporation, association, union, or individual” -- https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/310/
- toss1 6mo ago
  Yes, and it seems part of the work-around here is not that it is restricting the ability of the corporations to speak, they can say what they want, but by limiting the ability to spend money, especially money that is invisible. It seems to be more of a transparency act than a constraint [0]. Even this would be helpful as it would prevent corporations from saying one thing while they spend millions to elect candidates to do the opposite. At least now their activities would be public and they could be called out. From the article: >> The key, Mangan said, is about transparency. He said the current system allows private corporations to be established and collect money, but to keep those donors and the amounts hidden from public view. Those corporations, which can consist with as few as one donor, can give to candidates and causes under the corporation name, although the people supporting that corporation and the amount of money donated are unknown, leading to the term “dark money.” >> The change in Montana law would simply not grant the corporations the power to give to candidates or causes, but would allow individuals to give, but those donations would be tracked. [0] https://dailymontanan.com/2025/08/01/group-releases-text-of-proposed-montana-constitutional-amendment-to-curb-dark-money/ https://dailymontanan.com/2025/08/01/group-releases-text-of-...

jmclnx 6mo ago

Pretty bad these days the outcome of a court case will depend upon what political party will be put at a disadvantage. Even this article tryed to frame the case as "no political party will be disadvantaged". There is no law in the US these days.

atmavatar 6mo ago

I find the idea that the current Roberts court would issue a ruling reducing corruption a laughable proposition. Roberts, Alito, and Thomas were part of the original majority in the Citizens United v. FEC decision, and I have a hard time believing more than one of Barrett, Kavanaugh, or Gorsuch would break ranks in a similar case. But perhaps more importantly, several justices on the court have also since been revealed to have accepted undisclosed gifts (i.e., bribes) for decades (Thomas being the largest offender). Worse, the justices failed to recuse themselves from cases involving those who'd provided said gifts. Even worse, once the story broke about the undisclosed gifts, the Roberts court rejected the idea of independent ethics review for the court's members, insisting it could continue to be trusted to police itself despite the revelations of its own corruption. The Roberts court is a very pro-corruption court.

akramachamarei 6mo ago
Do you have examples of cases where gift-receiving judges should have recused? I tried looking into Thomas (the biggest news story) and ProPublica is very outright that the gift giver (Harlan Crowe) has not been involved in a Supreme Court case since Thomas was on it. The issue people seem to be focusing on is disclosure, the conversation doesn't seem to be at recusal.
- cherry_tree 6mo ago
  The Supreme Court rules on things like the chevron doctrine which allows the executive agencies to implement and enforce regulations across all industries. Does Harlan crowe do business in one of “all” industries? There is of course the topic of the article, citizens united which gave Crowe the ability to massively influence politics. Cases in the Supreme Court affect everyone in the country because it defines or redefines the law with every decision. To even begin the train of thought that a billionaire could be unaffected by _all previous supreme court opinions_ is just strange.
  - akramachamarei 6mo ago
    > To even begin the train of thought that a billionaire could be unaffected by all previous supreme court opinions is just strange. Yeah, that is strange. I'm curious why you brought it up.

rawgabbit 6mo ago

Instead of directly challenging the legality of this dark money, it may be better to force transparency. For every donation over a thousand dollars, the donor must register it with the FEC else they are in jeopardy of civil fines and other civil penalties. In the case of an organization donating the money, they must disclose the source of the money similar to Sarbannes Oxley.