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To day from the Supreme Court

joec

New member
GOLD Site Supporter
Here is some change for you guys.
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Jan 21, 11:56 AM (ET)

By MARK SHERMAN



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WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court threw out a 63-year-old law designed to restrain the influence of big business and unions on elections Thursday, ruling that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress. The decision could drastically alter who gives and gets hundreds of millions of dollars in this year's crucial midterm elections.
By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned two of its own decisions as well as the decades-old law that said companies and labor unions can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads. The decision threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.
It leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.
Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an unconstitutional restraint of free speech, and the court majority agreed.
"The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion, joined by his four more conservative colleagues.
Strongly disagreeing, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his dissent, "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation."
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens' dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom.
The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.
Advocates of strong campaign finance regulations have predicted that a court ruling against the limits would lead to a flood of corporate and union money in federal campaigns as early as this year's congressional elections.
"It's the Super Bowl of bad decisions," said Common Cause president Bob Edgar, a former congressman from Pennsylvania.
The opinion goes to the heart of laws dating back to the Gilded Age when Congress passed the Tillman Act in 1907 banning corporations from donating money directly to federal candidates. Though that prohibition still stands, the same can't be said for much of the century-long effort that followed to separate politics from corporate money.
The decision's most immediate effect is to permit corporate and union-sponsored political ads to run right up to the moment of an election, and to allow them to call for the election or defeat of a candidate. In presidential elections and in highly contested congressional contests, that could mean a dramatic increase in television advertising competing for time and public attention.
In the long term, corporations, their industry associations and labor unions are free to tap their treasuries to assist candidates, although the spending may not be coordinated with the candidates.
"It's going to be the Wild Wild West," said Ben Ginsberg, a Republican attorney who has represented several GOP presidential campaigns. "If corporations and unions can give unlimited amounts ... it means that the public debate is significantly changed with a lot more voices and it means that the loudest voices are going to be corporations and unions."
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader who filed the first lawsuit challenging the McCain-Feingold law, praised the court for "restoring the First Amendment rights" of corporations and unions. "By previously denying this right, the government was picking winners and losers," McConnell said.
The case does not affect political action committees, which mushroomed after post-Watergate laws set the first limits on contributions by individuals to candidates. Corporations, unions and others may create PACs to contribute directly to candidates, but they must be funded with voluntary contributions from employees, members and other individuals, not by corporate or union treasuries.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joined Kennedy to form the majority in the main part of the case.
Roberts, in a separate opinion, said that upholding the limits would have restrained "the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy."
Kennedy, who dissented from the rulings the court overturned Thursday, said, "No sufficient government interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations."
Stevens, in a 90-page opinion that dwarfed Kennedy's, complained that the court majority overreached by throwing out earlier Supreme Court decisions that had not been at issue when this case first came to the court.
"Essentially, five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law," Stevens said.
The case began when a conservative group, Citizens United, made a 90-minute movie that was very critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton as she sought the Democratic presidential nomination. Citizens United wanted to air ads for the anti-Clinton movie and distribute it through video-on-demand services on local cable systems during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign.
But federal courts said the movie looked and sounded like a long campaign ad, and therefore should be regulated like one.
The movie was advertised on the Internet, sold on DVD and shown in a few theaters. Campaign regulations do not apply to DVDs, theaters or the Internet.
The court first heard arguments in March, then asked for another round of arguments about whether corporations and unions should be treated differently from individuals when it comes to campaign spending.
The justices convened in a special argument session in September, Sotomayor's first. The conservative justices gave every indication then that they were prepared to take the steps they did on Thursday.
The justices, with only Thomas in dissent, did uphold McCain-Feingold requirements that anyone spending money on political ads must disclose the names of contributors. The justices filed five separate opinions totaling 176 pages.
--- Associated Press writers Jesse J. Holland and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.


 

Reno

New member
I think it was a bad decision. It means more opportunity for multi-national corporations to make our decisions.
 

joec

New member
GOLD Site Supporter
I don't find it surprising considering the make up of the current court. More is coming from this supposedly conservative judges that don't make law like the liberal judges. They over turned existing laws held to be constitutional by a 100+ years of cases. Here are the justices that agreed a corporation had equal rights with the people but with much more money.

Roberts
Scalia
Thomas
Alito
Kennedy
 

JEV

Mr. Congeniality
GOLD Site Supporter
I guess it was just fine when the non-profits and special interests held all the trump cards, right? Now that the playing field has been leveled, it's not such a good thing for unions and special interests. Personally, I have always had a problem with unions spending their member's money on political issues and candidates that almost always are Democrat basedm even though I am not a union member, nor would I ever be. I've always been smart enough to bargain for myself, and have always outpaced union pay by at least double, without any of the union hassles. But that's a topic for another discussion. I believe this decision if fair, and I can understand why you think it is wrong. Your side loses some of it's punch.
 

joec

New member
GOLD Site Supporter
Corporations also had pacts the same as unions and special interest groups. Pacts are a bit different than putting a corporation the same as individuals which pacts are. One chooses to give to a pact of their own wishes. But then I guess we will get the best government corporations can buy. Hell a company like Microsoft or one of the big banks can spend more than most politicians can spend in a campaign much less what people would raise with single donations. This isn't a partisan thing as both sides of the isle are up in arms over this.
 

nixon

Boned
GOLD Site Supporter
Joe , Is it Pacts ,or PAC's ? Just wanted to see if You knew the difference :hide:
 

jimbo

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
I think that the surprise here is that this verdict surprised anyone. Whether you spend 5 bucks for a soap box or a few mil for a TV ad, it's all the same to the Constitution, and the issue was constitutional grounds. Personally, I don't think that it will change much. The unions, businesses, and the PACS, and the rich and famous like George Soros, are already spending hundreds of millions each on elections. Don't kid yourself about the PACS. Many of them have plenty of money, and plenty of voters, and with many it is harder to opt out than opt in.
 

RedRocker

Active member
If any of you think "big business" doesn't already run the show you're kidding yourself.
There's no way in hell those assholes inside the beltway will do anything to
jeopardize their piggy bank.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Corporations also had pacts the same as unions and special interest groups...
Except that it was illegal for corporations to force their employees to donate to political campaigns while it was perfectly acceptable for unions to extract pay from union members as part of their dues and funnel that to political campaigns.

This seems to do little more than restore the law to what it was before McCain-Feingold. Life was not bad back then, I doubt it will be much different in the future.
 

joec

New member
GOLD Site Supporter
Except that it was illegal for corporations to force their employees to donate to political campaigns while it was perfectly acceptable for unions to extract pay from union members as part of their dues and funnel that to political campaigns.

This seems to do little more than restore the law to what it was before McCain-Feingold. Life was not bad back then, I doubt it will be much different in the future.

I belonged to the Sheet Metal Union which is part of the AFL/CIO. We had PAC but no one was forced to pay into them. You signed up to participate or didn't your choice. Now I've not been a member since '79 so it might have change though I doubt it.

My main problem with this decision is how much more money is going to move into politics. We are all complaining now about how the people are ignored in Washington while special interests get their ear.

Perhaps you will see it when your Congress and President start to wear sponsor hats and jackets filled with sponsor affiliations, like in NASCAR. :whistling:
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
I belonged to the Sheet Metal Union which is part of the AFL/CIO. We had PAC but no one was forced to pay into them. You signed up to participate or didn't your choice. Now I've not been a member since '79 so it might have change though I doubt it.
My wife is a union member (Teacher) and while not "forced" to contribute to the PAC, she is pressured by her union peers to tow the party line. Basically its a stick they beat you over the head and bloody you up, and if you opt out then they berate you all year long, ostracize you, and treat you like a leaper . . . but its legal to opt out!

My main problem with this decision is how much more money is going to move into politics.
And how much is that?

My bet is that there won't be MORE money moving in, but that the money will simply follow a more direct path from the company to the politician rather than from the company to the employee to the PAC to the politician.

The reality is there is only so much money allocated to lobbying and changing this law is not going to increase the budgets of companies because the companies only have so much money they can allocate.
 

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
Staff member
SUPER Site Supporter
McCain-Feingold was a poorly written law that had good intentions.

You can't create a law with too many loosely defined exceptions. It will be abused.

We'd all be better served with term limits on our elected officials AND their employees.
 

jpr62902

Jeanclaude Spam Banhammer
SUPER Site Supporter
Hey, PB. Waddya doin with that GIF of my girlfriend in your siggy? She's a very private person, ya know .....

/highjack
 
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