US Supreme Court strikes down electoral spending restrictions
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:00 pm by David FarrarThe US Supreme Court has struck down part of the law which restricts private organisations from spending their money on election campaigns.
Cnet explains why:
The U.S. Supreme Court’s sweeping ruling on Thursday that invalidated large chunks of campaign finance law arose in part from an unlikely source: the emergence of Facebook, YouTube, and blogs, and the decline of traditional media outlets.
A 5-4 majority concluded that technological changes have chipped away at the justification for a law that allows individuals to create a blog with opinions about a political candidate–but threatens the ACLU, the National Rifle Association, a labor union, or a corporation with felony charges if they do the same.
The now-invalidated law “would seem to ban a blog post expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate if that blog were created with corporate funds,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion (PDF). “The First Amendment does not permit Congress to make these categorical distinctions based on the corporate identity of the speaker and the content of the political speech.”
In NZ we don’t have a court that can strike down laws that breach the Bill of Rights. To get rid of the Electoral Finance Act, we had to sack the Government.
The court pointed out that the now-invalidated laws are more sweeping than the term “campaign finance” might imply–and amount to simple censorship. It listed these acts of political speech that previously would have been criminalized: the Sierra Club running an ad (close to the time of an election) disapproving of a congressman who favors logging in national forests; the NRA publishing a book urging a vote against an incumbent U.S. senator who supports a handgun ban; and the American Civil Liberties Union creating a Web site telling the public to vote for a presidential candidate because of that candidate’s defense of free speech.
This law was even worse than the EFA!
Joel Gora, a professor at Brooklyn Law School and ACLU lawyer who argued a landmark 1976 Supreme Court case, wrote at The New York Times’ Web site today that the justices “dismantled the First Amendment ‘caste system’ in election speech. Before today, the right to speak depended on who was doing the speaking: business corporations, no, unless they were media corporations; nonprofit corporations, maybe, depending on where they got their funding; labor unions, no.”
What happened of course was these groups formed PACs instead, and just donated to the PACs.
The left in the US are calling this an awful decision. This is ironic as the Obama campaign was the highest spending of all time – the first oen to turn down federal funding and an associated cap. They are not against big money in politics – just against other people’s big money!
Related posts:
- Supreme Court Bill passed
- Supreme Court agrees to hear Maori Council appeal
- Supreme Court criticism
- Supreme Court
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:26 pm
They should make lobbying illegal in the states, then you would find less corrupt representatives. The whole system in the states is corrupt down to the last politician.
Vote:January 22nd, 2010 at 5:41 pm
And yet, many of those same voices raised in protest against the EFB and S59, railing at how an out-of-control government could impose draconian legislation on a public clearly opposed to it, were also raised in condemnation of Chief Justice Sian Elias when she suggested that perhaps non-violent offenders be let out of prisons back in July ’09.
Presumably if this “activist, lefty” judge had drawn attention to the unfairness of which those people disapprove, it’d have been okay?
Simon Power, in particular, whose rebuke to Dame Sian was the biggest breach of the doctrine of separation of powers I can recall and made Helen Clark look like a casual, hands off manager, would presumably have cheered her on and used her speech to form the basis of a few Parliamentary Questions if she’d raised those issues whilst he was in Opposition.
So do we want a court with the power to protect us from unconscionable government action, or don’t we? In a perfect world I’d prefer not, but given the world in which we live I’m forced to the conclusion that such reforms are necessary.
Vote:January 22nd, 2010 at 5:43 pm
” The left in the US are calling this an awful decision ”
One in the eye for that “reach across the aisle” arsehole McCain too.
Vote:January 22nd, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Redbaiter you are ignorant as usual. It doesnt change the current laws about donating to candidates( McCain Feingold).
THis only effects groups ( businesses AND Unions) spending their own money, on their own account, on ads for or against issues or candidates.
So previously Bill Gates could spend millions on ads against a candidate, but Microsoft couldnt do the same.
But Bill Gates still can only donate something like $2300 to each candidate he likes.
Now Microsoft can spend millions on its own ads .
Not sure on this but probably special issue groups can now raise big bucks from companies or unions to campaign against a candidate. Or more likely give to the respective Senate or Congressional campaign funds who then select marginal races to spend their dollars
Funny that the SCOTUS has found that non persons ( businesses and unions) have free speech rights like ordinary mortals . Previously ‘corporate speech’ was found to be not ordinary free speech.
Vote:January 22nd, 2010 at 6:07 pm
” Redbaiter you are ignorant as usual. It doesnt change the current laws about donating to candidates( McCain Feingold).”
Yeah sure commie….
http://bigjournalism.com/fross/2010/01/21/supreme-court-drop-kicks-mccainfeingold-scores-victory-for-1st-amendment/
Vote:January 22nd, 2010 at 6:17 pm
No.
You’re getting confused between corporate speech (speech by corporations, organisations and unions) and commercial speech (advertising for products or services).
The Supreme Court has previously found that commercial speech is less protected than political speech. The previously recognised differences haven’t been about the author of the speech, but the type of speech itself.
Vote:January 22nd, 2010 at 8:41 pm
In 1886 a headnote by the Official Court reporter to the Courts Decision about whether a Railroad was entilted to tax deductions that an ordinary person could claim said that Corporations were entitled to the protections of the 14th amendment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad
The court reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis, wrote the following as part of the headnote for the case:
“The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.”[6]
In other words, corporations enjoyed the same rights under the Fourteenth Amendment as did natural persons.[7]
However, this issue is absent from the court’s opinion itself.
Hilarious.!
Vote:The strict constructionists have put the word corporations into the constitution where it never existed. And it started with a court reporter ( and former Railroad official) making up something the Judges never said.
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:45 pm
The Good ole US of A.
The bastion of freedom upholds freedom again.
There is no greater country on this planet that allows you the freedom of speech as a fundamential human right.
And if you dont like the Government of the day you are free to say so.
This is the principles that the US fought for in Iraq and is fighting alongside Willy Apiata in Afghanistan.
Vote:January 23rd, 2010 at 7:06 am
” the first on[e] to turn down federal funding and an associated cap”
I don’t think that’s correct.
Vote:January 23rd, 2010 at 1:32 pm
polemic , when did companies become humans ?. Companies are not mentioned in the US constitution either, the rights only apply to persons ( which once didnt mean slaves and until the 1920s didnt mean women either)
There was nothing to stop individuals , rich or poor, to stop them spending ‘their own money’ to oppose candidates.
The old rules applied to companies or special interest groups not individuals ( or humans as you called them)
Vote:January 23rd, 2010 at 2:28 pm
it is an absolute affront to democracy this decision. anyone who believes companies (even foreign owned ones) have the same rights as voting citizens is insane. do the people who support this decision not understand that their interests will be less important now, more than ever? do they not think that chinese, saudi, euro companies will not buy senators/congressman even more? it is now legal. but hey, the us far right (which comprises the enitre repub party, there are no more moderates) gets voted in by a somewhat ignorant public, and they allow this to happen. serves them right. all i can say is glad i live in nz where we elect people based on ideas, not how much money is behind them
Vote:January 23rd, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Countess is the mistress of misinformation.
She should actually try to read the judgment.
The first Amendment to the US Constitution (BofR) reads thus:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Note the amendment does not limit the constitutional protection for speech to that speech of natural persons. It protects the speech itself. Generally the only exception to the prohibition on laws abridging the freedom of speech is where there is a compelling governmental interest.
Of all classes of speech, political speech enjoys the greatest protection and those laws seeking to limit it are scrutinised most closely because political speech is an essential facet of holding the very government formed in the US Constitution to account.
Vote: