Supreme Court Eviscerates McCain-FeinGold

The Supreme Court has ruled in the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission case.

Sweeping aside a century-old understanding and overruling two important precedents, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.

The ruling was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace will corrupt democracy.

The 5-to-4 decision was a doctrinal earthquake but also a political and practical one. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision, which also applies to labor unions and other organizations, to reshape the way elections are conducted.

“If the First Amendment has any force,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, which included the four members of its conservative wing, “it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”

Justice John Paul Stevens read a long dissent from the bench. He said the majority had committed a grave error in treating corporate speech the same as that of human beings. His decision was joined by the other three members of the court’s liberal wing.​

From​

The New York Times​

This comes just in time for the midterm elections.

You can read the actual decision and the dissent here.

 

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Congradulations on the death of Democracy in the US.

 

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Thanks, we like being mushrooms. Shit is good.

 

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Have to agree that this is not a step in the positive direction.

I mean, I get the freedom of speech arguments, and theoretically, they are correct. But openning the doors to this kind of spending, in practice, will not be good for American democracy. Not at all.

 

Wow this so helps the major problem in american politics that the actual citizens get ignored in favor of corporations

 

I support this decision on free speech grounds, although I do like the idea to require that politicians wear uniforms like Nascar drivers with patches showing their corporate sponsors.

 

If my neighbor incorporates his dog, so that we can't stop it from barking all night during political campaigns, I'm going to have to think of something drastic.

Can we still stop corporate computer servers from spamming?

Once you assume a legal corporation is a legal person, the kind of entity the Bill Of Rights endowed (unbeknownst to its authors), theory can produce all kinds of correct stuff that a 12 year old with playground experience would take for a joke.

Legal people have broad protection against self-incrimination, and can commit lots of crimes for which the only penalty is jail. They can bear arms, up to militia level, and move themselves around the country without restriction. A legal person in one state is automatically a legal person of the same kind in every state. Legal persons do not have to pay the other legal persons they have custody over, for requiring services from them.

Legal persons can tell lies, over and over, in public. They don't have to stop, even if they get caught - they have a right to express their opinion, even counterfactual opinion.

Thinking about the debates over Supreme Court nominations and so forth, back over the years, all those complaints about "activist" judges that would be addressed by "strict Constitutionalist" judges and so forth, that line from I Robot keeps coming up: sometimes, we told you so just doesn't seem to cover the situation.

Colossally absurd stupidity is a strange feature of a Supreme Court. We're in an odd region of Dickens and Heller intersection.

 

I think we need to make a point of finding out how much each corporation spends on each candidate. If you notice that Pfiser is spending $750,000 on the GOP candidate and $500,000 on the Dems... VOTE FOR ANYONE OTHER THAN A DEM OR GOP!!!

I think the more we know about WHO funds each candidate by the tune of how much, the better off we'll be. This info should be BY LAW collects and presented on the ballot.

 

This Supreme Court decision prevents the reliable collection of such info. The anti-Hillary "documentary", for example, was solemnly declared to have been for public information, and not in support of any candidate.

 

Apparently also the death of proper spelling; and we never had democracy anyway. This country was founded on principles of freedom from and freedom to, not majority rules and socialism.

The only people that support socialism and oppose elitism are lazy, untalented people that want to feed off of the elite.

Right, because the people working for corporations aren't citizens...?

 

Do you like the idea of foreign owned corporations controlling our elections with their money?

 

Maybe you could incorporate your shotgun which would therefore only be exercising it's right to free speech when it shoots the dog.

 

This ruling is helpful because it brings the problems out in the open. Corporations wre already easily finding ways to get around McCain Feingold; they really did not need this ruling to corrupt congress.

 

On the contrary, it enables their concealment.

Dollar volumes become much harder to track, sources become anonymous, and there is no crime involved therefore no investigations etc.

For example: with no limit on amounts from single sources, nothing prevents all the major insurance companies from arranging for their money to come from one corporation, not even an insurance company. So ten million in campaign TV spot financing flows into, say, Michelle Bachman's district, and it's all from something called the Records Handling Inc, a paperwork servicing company based in Arkansas with many corporate clients. And Ms Bachman knows where that came from, and what is expected, and the implied threat - that ten million could just as easily be thrown against her, next election.

 

Here now, Chinese megacorps have First Amendment rights too!

 

It will start to bother me when our elections mean much. I'd say my life is more signficantly impacted by the behavior of banking officials making monetary policies and media corporations influencing public opinion than lobbyist bribes do. Let them bribe, let everyone bribe - why not? Governments seem to be inherently corrupt.

 

The Roberts Court is a political tool

I have a problem with the idea that corporations are people. Additionally, if money is speech, how can you prevent a minor from buying a beer? That would violate his right to free speech.

To the other, though, there is a coin toss to be had. Heads, it's a good thing because campaign finance will have a place in the spotlight as people argue over who is un-American for accepting whose money. Tails, it's a bad thing because campaign finance will have a place in the spotlight as people argue over who is un-American for accepting whose money.

 

If money is speech then taxation unconstitutionally restricts free speech. And poor people have no vocal cords.

 

what stupidity, a) money is not political speach, its MONEY!! HELLO!!. b) untill someone shows me the "brain" and "heart" of microsoft i refuse to call it a "person"

Rights protect PEOPLE who can FEEL and have certain inaliable dignity under the convention of civil and political rights. Companies are COMPANIES and have no more need of political protection than the chair im sitting in does (Spoken by Asguard on Behalf of his chair, Adelaide

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