Roberts Court Overturns Yet Another Precedent in Favor of Corporate Campaign Cash

Wrong, a candidate's name could not be mentioned 30 days before an election in an ad.

You can't keep saying a corporation is not a person and then ascribe speech to said corporation. Corporations don't produce speech, licenses don't produce speech, people do.

You'll never convince me that individual speech can be regulated because those individuals happen to be part of a corporation. Their speech is protected like any other person's speech is.

 

A corporation is a group of people. No corporation can be formed without officers being appointed who are responsible for its conduct. Also, it is obviously impossible for a corporation to communicate or issue speech other than by a human agent. All corporations are organizations of human beings. And as organizations of human beings, they have a right to free speech here in this country, both individually and collectively.

Anyone who tries to restrict the free speech of corporations is at the same time restricting the free speech of those human beings who are responsible for running the corporations. You guys can try to spin it how you want to, but the first amendment was written to protect free speech, especially in a political context. It is political speech of this type, by unions or corporations, that is being protected by this ruling, which is exactly consistent with the intent and purpose of the first amendment of the constitution.

We do not choose our leaders by armed insurrections or by Coup d'état. Instead, we debate issues openly, allowing all sides to be heard, then we have regular elections. Whereby if the current lot is not performing up to expectations, we throw the rascals out. And this is not a partisan exercise, as we have seen during most of our lifetimes. Both sides get tossed out on a recurring basis. And on it goes.

Our method of choosing our leaders by debate and elections is not without its own hostilities. But is is hostility in word, rather than from the barrel of a gun. Our right to free speech is something to be jealously guarded, at least in my view. And that must necessarily include the rights of everyone, including people who associate together in form of a union or a corporation.

 

I'm still reading through this thread since Friday but this made me pause.

Hold on... There are people who fought and died so corporations and similar entities could have unlimited political speech? Really?

 

It's illegal to mention a candidate's name in a broadcast advertisment 30 days before a primary and 60 days before an election.

CJ Roberts specifically asked the government lawyer if Wal-Mart could mention McCain or Obama action figures in a tv ad 30 days before the election, and the government lawyer actually said that would be prohibited (and he wouldn't be wrong given the FEC power at that time). Unreal.

Right but the Rockets are an association of individuals, who individually or in concert produce speech. I could set up a corporation legally, but it would never produce speech without individuals to create it. And speech cannot be abridged by Congress, by virtue of the 1st Amendment.

Just because Jason Friedman posts an article on Rockets.com doesn't mean the government has a right to censor it because he's part of a corporation. Do you honestly think that's ok?

"I don't have time to explain it", "This is the way it's always been", "You wouldn't understand the nuances"...

Whatever man.

 

The problem with your argument is that you are missing the point of directly funding campaigns. There is nothing stopping Chevron execs from writing an op-ed or as in the case of GE buying a media outlet or setting up one of their own. IF you argue that NYT as a corporation as more political speech rights than Chevron that's not the case at all.

 

You are the one who is out of his depth. It is only people that form corporations. You cannot form a corporation without people appointed as officers, who are responsible for their executive actions on behalf of the corporation. The individual stockholders are limited in their liability to their investment in the company's stock. But the officers are responsible for their actions as agents of the corporation under the law. And it is only these same officers who issue communications on behalf of the corporation.

In any case, the Supreme Court of the United States of America agrees with me and disagrees with you. If you think you or the left wing political hacks who are raising Cain about this decision on television are more knowledgeable than the Supreme Court justices who decided this, then you are mistaken, once again.

 

Except that union members earn a wage and if I use a union carpenter I don't have a vote then in how he votes for his union's spending. At the sametime if I own stock in Exxon I have a vote as a shareholder in regard to the direction they go.

As far as corporations outspend unions by 1000 to one skirts the issue that legal entities are being granted the same free speech rights as people. Are you saying unions should be allowed to spend unlimited amounts on politicians campaigns because their spending currently is less?

Consider that my company is incorporated and our earnings are probably .001% of Exxons so does that mean that since we don't earn as much as Exxon we should be allowed to have unlimited political spending?

 

Is this really the argument you want to make? Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court thought this was incorrect and the previous standard was correct. At times, the Supreme Court has said that slavery, segregation, and all sorts of other stuff was acceptable. Are you saying those things were right too? Or are you suggesting you're more knowledgable than Supreme Court justices?

 

I agree with Sam here. You and MojoMan are misunderstanding the nature of corporations and why we have them. I am the CEO of a two person corporation that said the corporation is not me or my partner it is explicitly set up so we have liability protection to conduct business. So while the corporation is made up of people (employees and shareholders) it is in the eyes of the laws a separate legal entity.

If we accepted what you are saying then the idea of a separate legal entity shouldn't exist along with liability protections for the employees and shareholders. If you own stock in Exxon and Exxon got sued then you would be liable for the lawsuit.

 

No, you make a fair point. We should all be able to air our views, and agree or disagree however each of us chooses. The Supreme Court does not always get it right, but it seems clear to me that they did get it right in this case.

The point I was trying to make in the passage you quoted above is that SamFisher is not the know-it-all that he is trying to present himself as, and that some very knowledgeable and powerful people have taken a different view from Sam on this issue. Sam's presentations of the fundamentals of corporate law are more a reflection of his own partisan views on this issue than they are of any clear and indisputable interpretation of the law on this topic.

 

Free Speech for Corporations

Why the Supreme Court got it right in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission


Steve Chapman | January 25, 2010

During the 2008 campaign, a group called Citizens United put together a documentary, Hillary: The Movie. Remember seeing it on cable TV? No, you don’t, because the organization decided it couldn’t show the film without the risk of felony prosecution. It had every reason to be afraid.

The problem was that the movie was not only about Clinton but made the case that she should not be president. Worse, it was supposed to be shown during—get this—an election campaign. That, under the federal law, made it verboten.

You might think the point of a campaign is to air facts and opinions about the people running, so that voters will have a wealth of information upon which to choose. But in the judgment of Congress, some facts and opinions are not welcome.

Citizens United is a nonprofit corporation set up to engage in conservative advocacy—an assemblage of individuals working for a political agenda. As individuals, they have the right to spend money to spread their opinions. But when they form a corporation for that purpose, some people think the same activities should be illegal.

That point of view prevailed in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which forbade corporations from engaging in “electioneering communication” within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. But Citizens United claimed the rule violated its free speech rights. And last week, the Supreme Court agreed.

The result was not in much doubt after the justices heard the case. The government lawyer defending the statute was asked: If movies financed by corporations may be banned because they express opinions on candidates, how about books?

“It’s a 500-page book, and at the end it says, ‘So vote for X,’ the government could ban that?” asked Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. Replied the Justice Department attorney, “Well, if it says ‘vote for X,’ it would be express advocacy and it would be covered by the pre-existing Federal Election Campaign Act provision.”

If the corporation wanted to publish such a book, he continued, “we could prohibit the publication of the book using corporate treasury funds.” We could prohibit the publication of the book.

If corporate advocacy may be forbidden as it was under the law in question, it’s not just Exxon Mobil and Citigroup that are rendered mute. Nonprofit corporations set up merely to advance goals shared by citizens, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association, also have to put a sock in it. So much for the First Amendment goal of fostering debate about public policy.

It is often argued that corporate speech may be banned because corporations enjoy certain privileges afforded by law. But it’s a longstanding constitutional axiom that the government may not require the surrender of constitutional rights in exchange for state-furnished benefits—say, barring criticism of Congress by residents of public housing.

Once you grant the government that sort of power, it is bound to expand. Newspapers could be forbidden to make endorsements. Right now, media companies are exempt from the ban. But why should a newspaper be free to spend money urging voters to support a candidate, while other companies are not?

Critics fear that freed from constraints, giant corporations will burn vast sums to help or hurt politicians. In reality, most business people are not about to plunge into divisive election campaigns, for fear of antagonizing customers.

Apple and Microsoft are not going to be squaring off to see who can elect the next president. In Illinois, corporations have always been allowed to spend money on elections. They rarely take any noticeable role.

In the end, the right to speak does not mean the power to control the political process. It merely means the right to convey views that citizens are free to reject—which, if they distrust corporate power, is exactly what they are likely to do.

Under this ruling, corporations will be allowed to speak about politics, just as they may speak about their products. In both realms, though, the effort is wasted unless they offer something their audience wants. The marketplace of ideas is not so different from the marketplace of goods.

Corporations have the freedom to communicate what they want. But the people still have the ultimate right: the right to say no.



link

 

so does this mean you've never disagreed with a supreme court ruling?

 

This post explains the issue in such an obvious "grade school level" way that you are never going to get them to agree with you. They are being reduced, in my opinion, to the predictable "fingers in ears, bellowing baby" response, through no fault of yours. Good luck with that, Sishir.

 

Hi Shovel,
Do you think Chevron or Google should be stopped from renting this every four years and incorporating their insignia? Google could, for instance, just put their extra primary color (yellow) in a few of the stars -- cute!

 

But liability protections are not part of the constitution. Protection against speech (all speech) is.

What if a company starts it's own youtube channel, and starts advocating for candidates online 30 days before an election? Why is that ok, but purchasing an equivilant TV ad is not? It's the same speech.

There is simply no constitutional (or moral) justification for regulating political speech, no matter where it comes from.