Though the manifold problems of money pouring into our campaigns have become a source of daily news and mounting public backlash, the anniversary of the ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission is an opportunity to review how this transformative decision was reached – the perfect storm of politicized jurisprudence, corporate entitlement, and a narrowly tilted bench.
As Chief Justice, John Roberts has expressed such concern over corporate rights, one might think he was found as a boy abandoned, taken in, and raised by some corporations. It was Roberts who directed the narrow issue of FEC penalties over ads for Hillary: The Movie to be rewritten and re-argued as a much broader debate over the right for corporations to spend money freely on third party advertisements.
The murky reasoning in the 5-4 decision is a swirl of citations to numerous codes that apparently somehow offer sufficient paradox that a century of laws passed by lawmakers over generations of Congress that restrictions on the federal and state level had to be knocked down, leaving almost no sense of legal authority on the subject.
How has this decision stood, two years later? Well, people have literally been taking to the streets across the country in outrage over this decision and corporate influence on public policy. In fact, this decidedly undemocratic ruling — five opinions against American law and overwhelming public opinion — has been such a galvanizing injection into the populace, Citizens United vs. FEC may prove to be the birth to an era of reform. [Read more]
A week from Tuesday, when the Supreme Court returns from its midwinter break and hears arguments in two criminal cases, it will have been five years since Justice Clarence Thomas has spoken during a court argument.
If he is true to form, Justice Thomas will spend the arguments as he always does: leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, rubbing his eyes, whispering to Justice Stephen G. Breyer, consulting papers and looking a little irritated and a little bored. He will ask no questions.
In the past 40 years, no other justice has gone an entire term, much less five, without speaking at least once during arguments, according to Timothy R. Johnson, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. Justice Thomas’s epic silence on the bench is just one part of his enigmatic and contradictory persona. He is guarded in public but gregarious in private. He avoids elite universities but speaks frequently to students at regional and religious schools. In those settings, he rarely dwells on legal topics but is happy to discuss a favorite movie, like “Saving Private Ryan.”
He talks freely about the burdens of the job. [Read more]
Until not long ago, Arizona politics were an open sewer of corruption. But the state adopted a system of public campaign financing in 1998, and, since then, more than half of all candidates for office in Arizona have opted for this money.
Not anymore. Last June, in the middle of a political campaign, the Supreme Court — which seems at times to be on a crusade to remake the American electoral landscape — thrust itself into an ongoing lawsuit and froze the crucial element of the financing system. [Read more]
The Supreme Court has decided to review a 1998 Arizona law which provides public financing to qualified candidates. This decision will likely define the constitutional boundaries of public financing laws across the country.
Critics claim programs that provide public funding for candidates are welfare for politicians, that the public should not be forced to support candidates with whom they disagree, and that public funds could be better spent in other areas. Proponents, on the other hand, contend that these programs provide qualified candidates who may not have access to campaign funds with the opportunity to run competitive campaigns, allow candidates to spend time with all of their constituents and not just those who can provide campaign donations, reduce corruption or the appearance of corruption, either of which may arise as a result of private contributions, and increase public confidence in their elected officials.
In an effort to allow publicly financed candidates to remain competitive in the face of heavy opposition spending from privately financed opponents or independent expenditure groups, many public campaign finance laws provide so-called “rescue funds.” These rescue fund provisions now stand on constitutionally shaky ground because of the Court’s 2008 decision in Davis v. FEC. [Read more]
The only sure things in life, Benjamin Franklin should have said, are death, taxes and campaign-finance reform. Trying to keep money out of politics is like trying to keep a basement dry in New Orleans, which made the issue a perfect subject for the Supreme Court: nothing revs up Justices like a symbolic fight over an intractable issue. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the court struck down certain limits on corporate campaign spending–upholding the First Amendment or selling American politics into bondage, depending on your view.
Some backstory: in 2008 the conservative nonprofit Citizens United produced the anti-Clinton film Hillary: The Movie and arranged to distribute it using money from the group’s corporate treasury rather than from its political-action committee–a crucial distinction under the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reforms of 2002. In a 5-4 ruling, the court found that distinction unconstitutional. If freedom of speech protects the right of individuals to air their political views, it decided, then that right extends to incorporated groups–like businesses, labor unions, Planned Parenthood and Citizens United.
The case sparked a clash of worldviews. “The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority. A law declaring who can say what about elected officials, and how and when, did not pass muster. On the other side, Justice John Paul Stevens’ 90-page dissent spoke admiringly of McCain-Feingold and shuddered to imagine the influence that big corporations and Big Labor might exercise over politics in the absence of such efforts. The ruling, he wrote, “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation.” [Read more]