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"As a Constitutional issue it's pretty clear to me and the majority of the Supremes" - that depends upon what kind of philosophy you take on approaching the rol

by ashley 17y ago

"As a Constitutional issue it's pretty clear to me and the majority of the Supremes" - that depends upon what kind of philosophy you take on approaching the role of the Supreme Court, activism to change policy versus narrow interpretation of the Constitution. It's simplistic to say that Citizens United ruling is simply a matter of suppression vs. free speech, as Buckley v. Valeo has nuanced to what extent "money" constitutes speech. As Justice Stevens writes in his dissent, "At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics." Several people have cited examples of free speech and the press. The Citizens United ruling lifts restrictions of corporate spending in political ads during election campaigns with in-house corporate treasury funds, i.e. unfettered free speech at any time. Rather than looking at NYT Co v. Sullivan, look Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce's interpretation. http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/updates/the_supreme_court.html?AID=1457 http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/updates/the_supreme_cour... Excerpted: "Austin’s critics aspire to dissolve all this complexity into a simplistic choice between speech and suppression. In attacking the "political support" language of Austin, they take it to be something strange, an import into the jurisprudence of a notion at odds with core First Amendment values. What they miss is its surprising ordinariness. The Austin case was getting at something important, even—one could say—basic to the mechanisms within the campaign finance laws for isolating the corruptive threat of aggregated group or associational spending." I'm not arguing that corporations be denied their political speech via spending, which was outside of the case ruling anyway. Free speech is controlled in very specific cases because of its potential injurious impacts - libel, safety, individuals versus entities, etc. What I take issue with is the extent of power given to special interest groups and lobbyists that override the interests of individual citizens. Is there a difference between groups of people coming together and pooling their money to form a PAC and group of people expressing political views of an entire corporation using corporation treasury funds? And if you want to go into fringe, extreme positions: what about tax-paying subsidiaries in the US headed by groups of American citizens, but owned by foreign corporations? Should they not then be entitled to equal free speech in our elections? In any case, it will be interesting to see what comes of the ruling, and thanks for highlighting those two cases.

hga 17y ago
Hmmm; let me only pose the question, was Austin or Citizens United the judicial activism? (Citizens United explicitly reversed Austin.) As for the foreign corporations, yes, that's an interesting question not touched up on in Citizens United. As a matter of policy, those US citizens working for a "foreign master" (to put it in the worst way) are nonetheless affected by legislation, and I find it hard to justify completely excluding such a corporation from the arena of politics ... especially since full disclosure in this case is not as problematic for a company. Pat Buchanan had an interesting/amusing proposal for dealing with foreign influences that I like, except that I don't see how to put it into practice: outlaw (in whatever method needed) lobbying by them unless done by foreign nationals.
- ashley 17y ago
  I don't know the answer to your question, and it's not a particularly useful exercise to make a blanket judgement on whether judicial activism is undesirable in every case. What I wanted to refute was your initial statement that a majority of Supreme Court justice leads to a clear interpretation of the law. What I meant by bringing up judicial activism is to say that one's opinion on judicial activism can influence how one views Supreme Court decisions. Dred Scott v. Sanford is an example of a majority Supreme Court decision, that in my opinion, was undesirable, despite its "fair" albeit narrow reading of the law. I can't help add, and this will be the last rebuttal I make since we're not going to sway each other's opinion, and I do feel like I messed up by adding something political to HN: As for foreign corporations, again, I want to emphasize, as I did previously, that free speech is not black/white of merely include them carte blanche or else our rights will be infringed upon. Free speech is not that simplistic although it is sacrosanct. Why not overturn Morse v. Frederick then, which I believe had such free-speech loving justices as Alito and Scalia from the Citizens United ruling also in the majority of that case. In Morse v. Frederick, free speech could be limited by "important—indeed, perhaps compelling interests" (taken from Justice Roberts writing the decision for the majority). Granted, it limits only illegal drug-promoting student speech, but it is again another example where the justices limited free speech and justified it on grounds of public interest that did not include immediate violence. The kid could still hang his "bong hits 4 Jesus" sign on his private residence or yell it on the streets. Corporations before Citizens United could still runs ads, as could PACs and the corporate executives _individually_ donating them. They just couldn't use corporate treasury funds nor could they run the ads a certain number of days before the date of the election. Therein, lies the question of what one considers best for public interest. Blue-collar wages of workers have remained stagnant over the last 30 years while white-collar and executive salaries have seen a nice rate of growth. The Chicago School of Economics elegant theories towards markets have not been substantiated by the uglier, noisier empirical evidence. Having studied psychological/behavioral economics and interned for a government official as well as interned with a non-profit lobbying group, I have a more skeptical view of the "well-informed" voter and the "public" servant. So this largely explains why I think differently than you do.

by ashley 17y ago

hga 17y ago

Hmmm; let me only pose the question, was Austin or Citizens United the judicial activism? (Citizens United explicitly reversed Austin.) As for the foreign corporations, yes, that's an interesting question not touched up on in Citizens United. As a matter of policy, those US citizens working for a "foreign master" (to put it in the worst way) are nonetheless affected by legislation, and I find it hard to justify completely excluding such a corporation from the arena of politics ... especially since full disclosure in this case is not as problematic for a company. Pat Buchanan had an interesting/amusing proposal for dealing with foreign influences that I like, except that I don't see how to put it into practice: outlaw (in whatever method needed) lobbying by them unless done by foreign nationals.

ashley 17y ago
I don't know the answer to your question, and it's not a particularly useful exercise to make a blanket judgement on whether judicial activism is undesirable in every case. What I wanted to refute was your initial statement that a majority of Supreme Court justice leads to a clear interpretation of the law. What I meant by bringing up judicial activism is to say that one's opinion on judicial activism can influence how one views Supreme Court decisions. Dred Scott v. Sanford is an example of a majority Supreme Court decision, that in my opinion, was undesirable, despite its "fair" albeit narrow reading of the law. I can't help add, and this will be the last rebuttal I make since we're not going to sway each other's opinion, and I do feel like I messed up by adding something political to HN: As for foreign corporations, again, I want to emphasize, as I did previously, that free speech is not black/white of merely include them carte blanche or else our rights will be infringed upon. Free speech is not that simplistic although it is sacrosanct. Why not overturn Morse v. Frederick then, which I believe had such free-speech loving justices as Alito and Scalia from the Citizens United ruling also in the majority of that case. In Morse v. Frederick, free speech could be limited by "important—indeed, perhaps compelling interests" (taken from Justice Roberts writing the decision for the majority). Granted, it limits only illegal drug-promoting student speech, but it is again another example where the justices limited free speech and justified it on grounds of public interest that did not include immediate violence. The kid could still hang his "bong hits 4 Jesus" sign on his private residence or yell it on the streets. Corporations before Citizens United could still runs ads, as could PACs and the corporate executives _individually_ donating them. They just couldn't use corporate treasury funds nor could they run the ads a certain number of days before the date of the election. Therein, lies the question of what one considers best for public interest. Blue-collar wages of workers have remained stagnant over the last 30 years while white-collar and executive salaries have seen a nice rate of growth. The Chicago School of Economics elegant theories towards markets have not been substantiated by the uglier, noisier empirical evidence. Having studied psychological/behavioral economics and interned for a government official as well as interned with a non-profit lobbying group, I have a more skeptical view of the "well-informed" voter and the "public" servant. So this largely explains why I think differently than you do.