Yup, we're boned: Supreme Court kills campaign finance reform

[Darius871]

Is Keith Olbermann Losing It?

Watch the 11-minute version; witnessing the build-up to that crescendo of bat****tery is the best part.





On the bright side, that dystopic nightmare will be a source of constant entertainment for cyberpunk fans.

[Drake Tungsten]

Watch the 11-minute version

Dude, there's no way I'd ever make it through an 11-minute Special Comment...

[Darius871]

Watch the 11-minute version

Dude, there's no way I'd ever make it through an 11-minute Special Comment...

But you're laughing at him, not with him...

[flash9286]

While you're right that the scholarly consensus is that the original intent left in place post-hoc remedies like defamation or sedition, the Court's decision this week specifically analogized to prior restraint to not only evade your argument but use it.

This regulatory scheme may not be a prior restraint on speech in the strict sense of that term, for prospective speakers are not compelled by law to seek an advisory opinion from the FEC before the speech takes place. Cf. Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 712-713, 51 S.Ct. 625, 75 L.Ed. 1357 (1931). As a practical matter, however, given the complexity of the regulations and the deference courts show to administrative determinations, a speaker who wants to avoid threats of criminal liability and the heavy costs of defending against FEC enforcement must ask a governmental agency for prior permission to speak. See 2 U.S.C. § 437f; 11 CFR § 112.1. These onerous restrictions thus function as the equivalent of prior restraint by giving the FEC power analogous to licensing laws implemented in 16th- and 17th-century England, laws and governmental practices of the sort that the First Amendment was drawn to prohibit. See Thomas v. Chicago Park Dist., 534 U.S. 316, 320, 122 S.Ct. 775, 151 L.Ed.2d 783 (2002); Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 451-452, 58 S.Ct. 666, 82 L.Ed. 949 (1938); Near, supra, at 713-714. Because the FEC's “business is to censor, there inheres the danger that [it] may well be less responsive than a court-part of an independent branch of government-to the constitutionally protected interests in free expression.” Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51, 57-58, 85 S.Ct. 734, 13 L.Ed.2d 649 (1965). When the FEC issues advisory opinions that prohibit speech, “[m]any persons, rather than undertake the considerable burden (and sometimes risk) of vindicating their rights through case-by-case litigation, will choose simply to abstain from protected speech-harming not only themselves but society as a whole, which is deprived of an uninhibited marketplace of ideas.” Virginia v. Hicks, 539 U.S. 113, 119, 123 S.Ct. 2191, 156 L.Ed.2d 148 (2003) (citation omitted). Consequently, “the censor's determination may in practice be final.” Freedman, supra, at 58.

Under current law it isn't a prior restraint. And I can't see how scheme is equivalent to a prior restraint either, there is an obvious difference. The court acknowledges this, then ignores it. I don't have a opinion whether this a good judgment based on policy, but legally it is activist decision that has no basis in the text or original intent of the Constitution, and it was made by judges who declared they were judicial minimalist and originalist.

[Kuciwalker]

.

[flash9286]

More relevantly, the prior restraint interpretation went out the window something like 80 years ago.

I never said it didn't kuci, my point is that scholars' best guess is that the framer only had prior restraints in mind at the the time the first amendment was ratified.

[Kuciwalker]

I DanSed you because I was misreading the case I was looking at.

[Guynemer]

Is Keith Olbermann Losing It?

I think he blew his last fuse somewhere around the time Cheney shot that dude in the face. He hasn't had "it" in quite some time.

[Solomwi]

Watch the 11-minute version; witnessing the build-up to that crescendo of bat****tery is the best part.





On the bright side, that dystopic nightmare will be a source of constant entertainment for cyberpunk fans.

That is magnificent. I kept waiting for his head to explode, leaving an NBC peacock ironically plastered across the backdrop.

[Darius871]

Under current law it isn't a prior restraint.

Doesn't "current law" include Citizens United's adoption of a "practical equivalent" standard? I'll assume you mean "the law a week ago."

legally it is activist decision that has no basis in the text or original intent of the Constitution, and it was made by judges who declared they were judicial minimalist and originalist.

I don't recall all of those 5 "declar[ing]" themselves "originalist" in the sense that brings perhaps Thomas to mind; Scalia's made clear that "[y]ou will never hear me refer to original intent, because as I say I am first of all a textualist.... If you are a textualist, you don't care about the intent, and I don't care if the framers of the Constitution had some secret meaning in mind when they adopted its words," such that "freedom of speech" would be most discernible from a dusty old dictionary and would have jackall to do with what the Framers thought. Meanwhile Roberts and Alito, though having made some conservative votes, haven't put forth any definitive label (let alone originalist) and Kennedy's been crucial to some of the more activist decisions out there. It's a mixed bag and the many decades of stare decisis drawing the First Amendment well beyond any "original" meaning hardly make continuing that trend an "activist" leap.

Oh well, even if the whole bloody lot of them are hypocrites (on both sides for that matter), it wouldn't be the first time or the last. Well, that's what we get for hiring such ****ty drafters in the first place, and then being such pussies about amending in the second place. It's not as if the perfect solution isn't staring us in the face.

[Darius871]

that's what we get for hiring such ****ty drafters in the first place, and then being such pussies about amending in the second place. It's not as if the perfect solution isn't staring us in the face.

Heh, I guess somebody beat me to the punch:

President Obama and congressional leaders have vowed to fight back against Thursday morning's Supreme Court decision rolling back restrictions on corporate campaign spending. Among the possible responses under consideration: an amendment to the Constitution.

"It's time to take matters into our own hands to enact a constitutional amendment that once and for all declares that we the people govern our elections and campaigns, not we the corporations," said Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) in a video produced by a coalition of progressive groups led by Public Citizen and Voter Action.

"This is a ruling that really jeopardizes the rights of ordinary Americans to have a voice in the political process," Edwards told HuffPost.

The suggested amendment would strip a corporation's personhood for First Amendment purposes. The Supreme Court ruled that federal restrictions on corporate money for campaign advertisements violated corporations' free speech rights.

There is little chance that Democrats can amend the Constitution by Election Day this coming November, if ever. Election law professor Rick Hasen called the idea "ridiculous" in a blog post on Thursday.

U.S. PIRG said that it is looking at other, more immediate options with the White House and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. Said PIRG's Lisa Gilbert, "We need to do something in time for the 2010 elections."

One proposal is to reenact some corporate spending limits, though it's unclear how such a move could avoid an immediate and successful legal challenge. Another proposal, which Gilbert said has already been drafted, would give corporate shareholders a binding say over a corporation's spending on political advertisements. And several members of Congress have called for renewed support of the Fair Elections Now Act in the wake of the decision. The bill would create a public financing system for campaigns in which small donors' contributions are matched by federal funds.

Donna Edwards, for her part, was skeptical of those options, saying the shareholder proposal would be ineffective because it would apply on a "corporation-by-corporation" basis. Besides, she said, shareholders already have that ability. In her view, the constitutional amendment, which would need to be ratified by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of the states, is the only way to go.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_431760.html

It'll never happen of course, but cute.

[Drake Tungsten]

The Left's attempt to draw a distinction between "people" and "corporations" as a way to justify restricting political speech is ****ing retarded, even for them.

[Darius871]

The Left's attempt to draw a distinction between "people" and "corporations" as a way to justify restricting political speech is ****ing retarded, even for them.

Wait, aren't corporations just groups of people? I'd have expected the beef to be that money is not speech, not that corporations aren't people.

Oh, I get it now...

[Drake Tungsten]

I'd have expected the beef to be that money is not speech, not that corps aren't people...

You expected wrong. Didn't you hear Olbermann *****ing about corporations not being people?

[Berzerker]

so boycott companies that back candidates you dont like