Citizens United

For interest's sake, I intend to compile a collection of articles related to the disastrous Citizens United v FEC decision by the shamefully corporate Roberts Supreme Court. I'll try to tie them together and comment on them at some later date -- if I have the time and the inclination.

From The Story of Stuff people comes The Story Of Citizens United v. FEC:

1. James Bopp, lead lawyer
2. Virginia decision: unlimited corporate contributions okay
3. Virginia reconsidered: maybe that first decision was wrong

The first is a link to The Man Behind Citizens United Is Just Getting Started by Stephanie Mencimer at Mother Jones. It's about James Bopp, a lawyer from Terre Haute, Indiana, who argued Citizens United before the Supreme Court and has made it his life's work to allow unrestricted anonymous campaign donations. It's hard to imagine a concept more damaging to the idea of democracy than that elections should be purchased by the highest bidder.

Freedom of Speech -- the First Amendment! The Holiest of Holies!

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Mencimer's article says:  "In many cases, including Citizens United, advocates from the ACLU, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the AFL-CIO have filed supporting briefs." How can you say you uphold the ideal of free speech if you have limits on campaign spending?

In my opinion, this argument has two fatal flaws. The first is the contention that money equals speech. I say, let the Koch brothers stand in a public square and shout themselves hoarse; let Koch Industries hire someone with strong vocal cords to do the same on behalf of Koch Industries. No problem.

The second is that gradually, over the years, the notion has slithered its way into the public belief, and therefore into the law, that a corporation is a person. IF A CORPORATION IS A PERSON, ARREST MASSEY ENERGY AND THROW IT IN JAIL UNTIL IT DIES! THEN GET AFTER THE REST OF THESE PSYCHOPATHIC MURDERING CORPORATIONS!

Mencimer says:

One thing no one can dispute is Bopp's impressive record in the courts. Even before Citizens United, he'd won a Supreme Court ruling striking down big chunks of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law. He was instrumental in Bush v. Gore, and he successfully beat back a massive lawsuit from the FEC alleging that the Christian Coalition had illegally campaigned on behalf of candidates including Oliver North, Jesse Helms, and Newt Gingrich. And now he's pursuing dozens of other cases that, if successful, could eliminate caps on political contributions, allow campaigns to hide their donors from public view, and kill public-financing laws across the nation.

Bopp has long been an influential player on the political scene.

He was an Indiana cochair of Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential campaign and worked on the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. (It was his legal reasoning that led the Supreme Court to settle the 2000 election in favor of Bush: He represented three Florida voters who claimed that recounting ballots by hand violated their right to equal protection, a position the Supreme Court adopted to justify its intervention in the election.)

Regarding the anonymity aspect of campaign contributions, conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has taken some surprising positions. In oral arguments in one of Bopp's cases, he said: "Democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage. The First Amendment does not protect you from criticism or even nasty phone calls when you take part in the legislative process."

In another of Bopp's recent cases, Scalia wrote in a concurring opinion: "For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaigns anonymously...This does not resemble the Home of the Brave."

Bopp has worked on important campaign finance issues with Texas ex-Congressman Tom DeLay, and is presently working on a case that would allow direct corporate donations to candidates —- an offense for which DeLay was convicted and is free pending appeal; presumably a decision in Bopp's favor would allow DeLay to go free. AARGH!

Bopp has argued in New York that the State's political donation limit of $58,000 -- 20 times the federal cap -- is too low.

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The second item on my Citizens United list is the decision of a Virginia judge, Reagan appointee U.S. District Judge James Cacheris, that companies have the same right to donate to political campaigns as do individual citizens.

"(F)or better or worse, Citizens United held that there is no distinction between an individual and a corporation with respect to political speech," Cacheris wrote in his 52-page opinion. "Thus, if an individual can make direct contributions within (the law's) limits, a corporation cannot be banned from doing the same thing."


Matthew Barakat, Associated Press, in an article entitled US judge rules against corporate contribution ban,  says:

Cacheris says that under the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United decision last year, corporations have the right to give to federal candidates.

The ruling from the federal judge in Virginia is the first of its kind. The Citizens United case had applied only to corporate spending on campaign activities by independent groups, such as ads run by third parties to favor one side, not to direct contributions to the candidates themselves.

 Barakat goes on to cite University of Virginia law professor Daniel Ortiz saying the ruling "pushes the outer limits of the Citizens United logic." Ortiz said he does not expect the ruling to stand.

The Citizens United case makes a distinction, Ortiz said, between independent expenditures by corporations that are not coordinating with a federal candidate's campaign, and direct campaign contributions.

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Well, sure enough, it may not stand; Judge Cacheris apparently is reconsidering his position. In a Seattle Times article entitled Reconsidering corporate money for federal candidates, the lead paragraph reads:

Good news for democracy. A federal judge in Virginia is reconsidering his May ruling on direct corporate contributions in federal elections, a decision that would compound the damage done by the Citizens United case in 2010.

Cacheris has ordered attorneys back to court to reconsider his interpretation of a 2010 high court ruling that made it legal for corporations to support independent, third-party expenditures for or against federal candidates.

Congress long ago agreed corporations should not be able to spend money to directly support candidates for federal office. The Supreme Court upheld the prohibition on direct contributions. The judge in Virginia apparently did not notice.

This reconsideration is welcome. At least he would not compound the grievous mistake of Citizens United.

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