Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Supreme Court overturns ban on direct corporate spending on elections

loquitur · 01-31-2010, 09:18 PM

no, Will. The partisans are the people here, and they say stupid things because of partisanship.

You want me to spell this out? here it is. Stevens' position is "a corporation is a corporation is a corporation" - out for one purpose, out for all. So if one kind of corporate speech can be banned because of appearance of corruption that means every kind can be banned for the same reason. That is a very simplistic view, and the one you are advocating.

The majority opinion is that, whether or not there are forms of corporate speech can be limited because of concerns about corruption - a question that was not at issue in the Citizens United case - it does not necessarily follow that simply by virtue of the fact that people are using the corporate form, that means every form of their speech can be regulated. One of the speech limitations Stevens is referring to go back to (IIRC) the Hatch Act cases, which forbade individuals who work for the govt from being active in politics on govt time. That's a free speech restriction on individuals, justified by the need to have a nonpolitical govt employee body. The corporate and union limitations (again, I'm going on memory) that he's talking about refer to restrictions on direct contributions to candidates, not on other kinds of expenditures such as "issue ads." So there was no 100 year settled law being upended - it just wasn't at stake in that case.

In order to get to Obama's conclusion, you need to say that protecting one kind of corproate speech necessarily means removing all forms of regulation of all other kinds of corporate speech. That's nonsense. it just doesn't follow that everything has to always be treated alike even if there are differences. It's like arguing that every spousal notification law destroys Roe v Wade. Well, maybe it makes a good fundraising mailer for Planned Parenthood to say so, but it just ain't true.

I'm not correcting Stevens, or Breyer or Ginsburg or Sotomayor. If you asked Stevens what the holding of Citizens United was, he woudl not tell you it looked anything like what Obama said. What he would say (and this is what his opinion says) is that it could be the first step toward what Obama said, and that's why it shouldn't be permitted. Big difference.

01-31-2010, 09:18 PM	#78 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	no, Will. The partisans are the people here, and they say stupid things because of partisanship. You want me to spell this out? here it is. Stevens' position is "a corporation is a corporation is a corporation" - out for one purpose, out for all. So if one kind of corporate speech can be banned because of appearance of corruption that means every kind can be banned for the same reason. That is a very simplistic view, and the one you are advocating. The majority opinion is that, whether or not there are forms of corporate speech can be limited because of concerns about corruption - a question that was not at issue in the Citizens United case - it does not necessarily follow that simply by virtue of the fact that people are using the corporate form, that means every form of their speech can be regulated. One of the speech limitations Stevens is referring to go back to (IIRC) the Hatch Act cases, which forbade individuals who work for the govt from being active in politics on govt time. That's a free speech restriction on individuals, justified by the need to have a nonpolitical govt employee body. The corporate and union limitations (again, I'm going on memory) that he's talking about refer to restrictions on direct contributions to candidates, not on other kinds of expenditures such as "issue ads." So there was no 100 year settled law being upended - it just wasn't at stake in that case. In order to get to Obama's conclusion, you need to say that protecting one kind of corproate speech necessarily means removing all forms of regulation of all other kinds of corporate speech. That's nonsense. it just doesn't follow that everything has to always be treated alike even if there are differences. It's like arguing that every spousal notification law destroys Roe v Wade. Well, maybe it makes a good fundraising mailer for Planned Parenthood to say so, but it just ain't true. I'm not correcting Stevens, or Breyer or Ginsburg or Sotomayor. If you asked Stevens what the holding of Citizens United was, he woudl not tell you it looked anything like what Obama said. What he would say (and this is what his opinion says) is that it could be the first step toward what Obama said, and that's why it shouldn't be permitted. Big difference.