Judge Knot
In and among dealing with the snow here in the DC area, and with a web log which may never operate optimally again, I wanted to take a moment to speak to the issues and decision of Citizens United vs FEC. The facts of Citizens United vs FEC are that there was a Hillary Clinton film, an unflattering documentary Hillary the Movie, paid for by Citizens United (Citizens United - Wikipedia) a 501(c)(4) movie company and dropped into the middle of primary campaign. The issue that ended up in the courts turned on what monies could be used to run ads for the movie. The question was whether McCain-Feingold prevented Citizens United to to use it's own funds -- revenue generated from other documetaries and activities. Inevitably it was brought up into the judicial process. All the way up and recently the Supreme Court Decided 5-4 that "Yes, sure they can"
Supreme Court Blocks Ban on Corporate Political Spending - NYTimes.com. This treatment of the case does (at least) three things according to the Washington Post: "1. Strikes down a 63 year old prohibition on corporations and labor unions using money from their general treasuries to produce and air campaign ads for races for congress and the White House. 2. Overturns a ban on corporations and unions airing campaign ads in the 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election. 3. Keeps in place a century old ban on donations by corporations directly to federal candidates. Also upholds disclosure requirements on campaign requirements." Supreme Court rejects limits on corporate spending on political campaigns - washingtonpost.com.
A decision that could have been decided narrowly. merely on whether ads for a movie, about a political figure, could be construed as political ads under the sub rules of the laws covering these issues was instead construed startingly broadly. The Court asked that the case already presented the previous term be reargued before them, in order to the question the laws themselves that would ordinarily have decided the matter.
The Harvard Law Record - Citizens United: Umpires running amok. Over ruling two precedents the majority crowed for the "most basic free speech principle-that the government has no business regulating political speech.".
What we see is an open break with the past, with restraint, with the principle of stare decisis. Which Justice Roberts claims cannot be seen as an "inexorable command"
High court shows it might be willing to act boldly - washingtonpost.com. Which, thought, is the way - judicial outrages like Dredd Scot notwithstanding - that it was presented in my udegraduate law courses. This judicial unrestraint shows a schism in the body politic between conservative court and elected officials (both other branches). Conservatives have sent 12 out the last 15 justices to the court. [
Michael Waldman - Campaign finance ruling reflects Supreme Court's growing audacity - washingtonpost.com, and it has given them the desire to remake centuries. Many here also see the developing present situation as a mirror of 1937; FDR's show-down with a conservative court. However Obama doesn't have FDR's expressly vocal margin of victory, five hndred twenty-eight electoral votes to Alf Landon's eight. Obama doesn't have FDR's moment in history. Without a check from either the legislature or executive the court will continue where the court in 1937 paused. Uniform, directed, and agenda setting. There is a deliberate pernicious intent to all this. The notion that corporations have the rights and privileges of free speech as though they were living creatures is obscurist. First corporations are not beings they are limited liability groupings of men and women who are mortal beings and are endowed with rights of freedom and speech in the same measure as the rest of us. Who now help themselves to a further share of priviledge. Second it is not about free speech per se. Corporations do not speak, it is about money. It is about those who control corporations, spending money. Under the banner of uncomplexity I would argue that the matter is exactly what it appears to be; an assault on rule by the people. It is explicitly a vote for the notion that the rich powerful and privileged as they exist -- are an elite, are heir and holders of the only opinions that matter. They are owners of the world, which the rest of us inhabit only as dust or chattel. It is a vote for the unexamined notion, bias you could say, that the needs of wealth are what is right and proper. Looking back at last term's Caperton v. Massey [
Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Inc. ] decision by the same core of Justices it is hard very hard to see anything else. The Robert's court does this not because they believe it will not have the effect of having right-wing corporate money drown out the voice of the people - the voice of any candidate they don't like, especially in judicial elections
Editorial Notebook - Hanging a "For Sale" Sign Over the Judiciary - NYTimes.com. They do it because they believe, and steadfastly hope, that it will. That it will deliver precisely that.
A minor war of words developed on this during the State of the Union Speech. The President scolded the court rather starkly Washington Memo - Supreme Court Gets a Rare Rebuke, in Front of a Nation - NYTimes.com, Alito dissembles soto voci
Obama vs. Alito: Political dust-up during State of the Union / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com. This raised a number of eyebrows, decorum breached and all that. I say decorum was already breached. However, The President ought not take up a permanent place in this argument. This self rightous power grab by the court does a lot to wake my inner activist. I am fairly sprouting tea leaves all over, but it may not be the same flavor of tea as others. I don't feel like starting a revolution though. It is a staple of things revolutionary such as the new conservatism that they cannot not tolerate dissent or even disagreement -- they are by their nature one-party states. I'll say what others are to reticent to say. I see this court as the shock troops of the coming managed democracy. While you can mouth "not true" all you want Justice Alito... if the jackboot fits you are goining to wear it
Doug Kendall: But It Is True, Justice Alito.
One counter argument made is that unions, trade unions and the like would be free to direct money from their general treasury into political campaigns also. A point not made in any of the majority opinions and not central to their thinking. It is ironic to note that in the same week that this ruling came down, the nominee to the TSA withdrew his name from consideration due to the opposition of a Senator who believed that the nominee might be open to even considering some unionization of airport security workers and stated flatly he would block his nomination on this account. One does not see here from conservatives any accordance of any legitimacy to trade unionism. Nothing here is intended to empower them. Another line taken is that the voters are wise and sophisticated enough to see thorough this avalanche of money. Perhaps, but Lincoln said only that "you can't fool all of the people all of the time." He did allow that you can fool some of people all of the time, and most of the people most of the time. No political campaign I know of has ever doubted the efficacy of mass infusions of money to move polling numbers and end result. I do not understand why they would pretend it makes no difference now. The entire advertising industry is built on the ground 'truth' that consumer behavior can be successfully manipulated by simple expenditure. Studies in the disciplines of public relations and propaganda -- different words for the same thing really show that organized institutional voice, armed with even a modicum of understanding of the recipient carries great weight. More than diffuse even if more commonly held and longer known information circulating normatively among the body of recipients. The corporation is a hierarchical institution designed to create a great pool of capital and capable of great directed action. Some have seen a role for shareholder voices, however representative of the people's voice they may be, over a corporations use of their general treasury. It is unclear what the role of management controlled development funds in political campaigns might be. It is also unclear whether disclosure laws will do enough to inform the public about corporations and their owners that they may make a decision not to buy a product or service the profit from which is then used to directly harm them or things they believe in and care about. Conservatism see no problem in saving workers from the "great" problem of unitary advocacy when it comes to the question of closed or open shops or elections in issues of unionism. Barring a wealth of reasoned argument other than by the empty black robes that made this decision. This should be seen as a transformational moment. A blatant attempt to begin a move of this nation away from rule by the people, by their many and their myriad voices, and towards rule by the deeply reactionary plutocratic few and their thinner narcissistic voices.
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