Supreme Court rejects corporate campaign spending limits

[KurtFF8]

Source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100121/pl_nm/us_usa_court_politics;_ylt=AiR6Qp2TzWxUhGg8mMKdb46 s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNwcjd0dWZsBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTAwMTI xL3VzX3VzYV9jb3VydF9wb2xpdGljcwRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wd WxhcgRjcG9zAzQEcG9zAzEEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9 oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawNzdXByZW1lY291cnQ-)


By James Vicini James Vicini – 30 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Supreme Court struck down on Thursday long-standing limits on corporate spending in U.S. political campaigns, such as this year's congressional races and the 2012 presidential contest.

The 5-4 ruling was a defeat for the Obama administration and the campaign finance law's supporters who said that ending the limits would unleash a flood of corporate money into the political system to promote or defeat candidates.

The ruling by the conservative majority transformed the political landscape and the rules on how money can be spent in future presidential and congressional elections, which already have broken new spending records with each political cycle.

The justices overturned Supreme Court precedents from 2003 and 1990 that upheld federal and state limits on independent expenditures by corporate treasuries to support or oppose candidates.

The decision was a victory for a conservative advocacy group's challenge to the campaign finance law as part of its efforts to broadcast and promote a 2008 movie critical of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She later became President Barack Obama's secretary of state.

The justices appeared at a special Thursday session to summarize the ruling and issued a total of five separate opinions exceeding 175 pages.

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the limits violated constitutional free-speech rights. "We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers," he wrote.

The court's conservative majority, with the addition of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both Bush appointees, previously voted to limit or strike down parts of the law designed to regulate the role of money in politics and prevent corruption.

The court's four liberals, including its newest member, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was appointed by Obama, dissented.

In his sharply worded dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation."

(Reporting by James Vicini, Editing by Howard Goller)

I agree with the majority opinion here: Free Speech is clearly about how much money an individual or company can give to politicians and lawmakers to influence legislation. This further proves that private property is a fair system, because ANYONE has access to this freedom, unless of course they're just lazy and enjoy poverty (like most people in poverty OBVIOUSLY do)

[h9socialist]

It would probably be more honest to rule that from now on, all political leaders in the United States will be selected by the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Round Table! You have to admit it would be a far less expensive way to get the same outcome than these farcical elections!

[cyu]

One small step for a plutocrat, one giant push towards revolution.

[Robocommie]

They should just put up the Republicans and the Democrats on the god-damn NYSE.

GOP +23 1/2... DEM +12.75...

[KurtFF8]

They actually do something like that around election time. (Not the actual NYSE though)

[Intelligitimate]

This theoretically also applies to unions, which have even more restrictions on them than corporations do in terms of backing candidates.

[RedScare]

This theoretically also applies to unions, which have even more restrictions on them than corporations do in terms of backing candidates.
True, but corporations have a lot more money behind them. This is monopoly capitalism at it's finest.

[Intelligitimate]

True, but corporations have a lot more money behind them. This is monopoly capitalism at it's finest.

The unions gave Obama more money than all other corporate interests combined (fat bit of help that did them, lol).

[cop an Attitude]

The unions gave Obama more money than all other corporate interests combined (fat bit of help that did them, lol).

If the flood gates are open to corporate bribery then its only going to get deeper. Unions are already in tight economic times as is and donating to an obviously corrupt system that this would bring seems almost irrational :rolleyes:.
But yes, Unions will still donate, but they have a budget limit. The divide of commerce and government is no more. One giant leap in Corporate Fascism! :cursing:.


oh, and btw: Kurt, is your rep number on purpose? I like it either way.

[La Comédie Noire]

They just put into law what has been going on for years now. It should also be noted that rank and file union members don't get to decide what is done with their treasury, that's up to the lieutenants of labor, who mainly concerns themselves with pissing away everything the American working class has ever gained.

The law has caught up with material reality.

[mlgb]

This theoretically also applies to unions, which have even more restrictions on them than corporations do in terms of backing candidates.

you think the 5% of the american workforce that is unionized can muster up even a fraction of the amount of money the corporations can, unrestrained?

probably not.

[Intelligitimate]

you think the 5% of the american workforce that is unionized can muster up even a fraction of the amount of money the corporations can, unrestrained?

probably not.

No, but I simply don't believe the "floodgates" some are talking about were ever closed to begin with. In reality, a lot of these laws applied a lot more to unions than they did corporations.

I see no evidence that:

1. Things were any worse before any of these campaign finance laws were in place.

2. Things actually got better after any of these laws were passed.

Given these two facts, I seriously fail to see what all the fuss is about. It almost strikes me as implying our murderous government somehow didn't already represent the capitalist class.

In fact, I think, if anything, this will only open up the ability of the unions to more directly influence the process. I don't know how many more hundreds of millions of dollars it will take before the unions learn the Democrats don't represent their interests, but now they can potentially start running their own candidates, which is a step in the right direction and will most definitely lead to more class consciousness in America.

As far as the stranglehold of corporate America on US politics, I don't really see how that can increase much more. The unions gave Obama $400 million dollars, $50 million more than all other donors combined. Even when they donate less money, it is still their will that is done.


It should also be noted that rank and file union members don't get to decide what is done with their treasury, that's up to the lieutenants of labor, who mainly concerns themselves with pissing away everything the American working class has ever gained.

The thing is, from my experience and the experience of several organizers I know, is that the labor movement is now opening up to a lot of young radicals. The radicals of the past built the union movement in the first place, and then were purged from it by class collaboratos. That generation of scoundrels has done nothing but let the labor movement wither away into almost nothing, and they are almost all dead anyway. It really seems to me now is the time the labor unions are almost begging to be put back on a class struggle basis.

[h9socialist]

They never were really closed, but they had limitations. This hardly touched McCain-Feingold. Rather, it bounced a ruling over 100 years old that prohibited direct campaign spending and contributions by corporations. It also removed limits on how much a corporation can spend in a political campaign.

This is meant, as one of my comrades aptly put it, to give a struggling plutocracy a blood transfusion. It also establishes a stupid and dangerous notion that spending money amounts to free speech and that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as individuals.

In other words, just put a big price tag on every member of Congress' ass . . . if automobiles and information are not paradigms for capital investment anymore, the purchase of Congressmen and Senators will be. The comrade above was absolutely correct: start trading members of Congress on the New York Stock Exchange.

[Deny]

Two questions:

1. When did the Court establish the precedent that campaign financing is a free speech issue?

2. Does this decision actively make the situation worse? I would think that now at least the nature of modern electioneering (it is not politics) would be on more explicit display. If our representatives' pretensions of working for the people are finally eliminated, all the more momentum then to bring them down...

[cb9's_unity]

From our perspective this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Two shitty party's promoting shitty candidates got in last election cycle and two shitty party's with shitty candidates will get in the next election cycle. The only difference is that the pro-capitalist nature of our elections will have become even more exposed.

Honestly though, earlier in this thread cyu couldn't have put it better.

[h9socialist]

One small step for a plutocrat, one giant push towards revolution.


I sincerely hope you're right!!!

[Guerrilla22]

Freedom to spend, err I mean of speech.

[cyu]

From http://inbrief.nwprogressive.org/post/380143257/the-u-s-supreme-courts-conservative-justices

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kxl1fuKWR21qzyfpuo1_400.jpg

[Ricardo]

So what does everyone think the 2012 election is gonna look like?

[GPDP]

So what does everyone think the 2012 election is gonna look like?

Expect tons of corporate-sponsored campaign ads. Possibly corporate-sponsored rallies and events.

Also, Obama's gonna lose, but more because of liberal disillusionment than this ruling IMO.

[Red Commissar]

This never ending battle of whether corporations should be entitled to rights given to individuals as guaranteed by the 14th amendment has always been problematic. It can go back over 120 years to Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad...

What's interesting is that this trial was over the legality of a Hillary Clinton smear video. Clinton's lawyers argued the video could not be aired on account of it being funded by corporations, and thus infringing standing campaign finance laws. Citizens United countered this by saying that they were entitled to their free speech. The Court ruled in favor of Citizens United in their case against the FCC, recognizing that regardless of how they were funded, they were entitled to free speech. So in the process they overruled a portion of the McCain-Feingold Act and a number of other laws.

Specifically what I'm reading is that it'll overturned the portions concerning the the broadcast, cable or satellite transmission of “electioneering communications” paid for by corporations (or labor unions) from their general funds in the 30 days before a presidential primary and in the 60 days before the general elections.

Of course, Unions won't be able to do much with this. A corporation will outpower them at every corner.

[Sendo]

good news, congress people in both branches want legislation to circumvent this.

[cyu]

good news, congress people in both branches want legislation to circumvent this.


Kind of like how Obama was going to give Americans universal health care? =]

[Sendo]

Kind of like how Obama was going to give Americans universal health care? =]

IT's nice to see that it at least as being acknowledged by the Democratic party and campaign spending limits will not go quietly into the night. Either they will be restored or mourned.

[cyu]

Clinton made a half-hearted attempt at universal health care too. Unfortunately there's a big difference between people who vote for American Democrats and the Democratic politicians that get elected. The ones that manage to get elected have already been vetted by the wealthy class when they contribute to their election campaigns and when they choose what stories to run about them in the mass media.

So the politicians in power are like boxers that make a good show of putting up a good fight, but they always throw the match in the third round and then go collect their bribes.

[mikelepore]

The proposed "Free Speech for People" constitutional amendment would specify that government has the right to regulate spending and other activities of corporations.
Apparently, Representative Donna Edwards (Democrat - Maryland) supports a version of it.

http://freespeechforpeople.org/amendment

The revolutionary left should participate in that discussion wherever possible because it touches upon the fact that corporations are not human beings but legal machinations.

The government established corporations so that businesses would be above the law, putting an upper limit on the stockholders' legal liabilities. But that means that the corporations are the government's own creations. To say that government can't regulate corporations woud be to say that government can't regulate it's own Frankenstein monsters. To expose the hypocrisy here would help highlight the government's role as, in the words of Marx, "the executive committee of the capitalist class."

[Sendo]

The proposed "Free Speech for People" constitutional amendment would specify that government has the right to regulate spending and other activities of corporations.
Apparently, Representative Donna Edwards (Democrat - Maryland) supports a version of it.

http://freespeechforpeople.org/amendment

The revolutionary left should participate in that discussion wherever possible because it touches upon the fact that corporations are not human beings but legal machinations.

The government established corporations so that businesses would be above the law, putting an upper limit on the stockholders' legal liabilities. But that means that the corporations are the government's own creations. To say that government can't regulate corporations woud be to say that government can't regulate it's own Frankenstein monsters. To expose the hypocrisy here would help highlight the government's role as, in the words of Marx, "the executive committee of the capitalist class."

Only indies in the Senate can be an antidote to their balwark of conservatism, but the House has scores of left-wing Dems. Fucking Senate shouldn't exist at all. We have a phony federal system that's hyper centralized where the central govt controls all real spending and yet we have equal representation to every state. This isn't a multi-ethnic assembly or a federation of autonomous republics, its just insanely arbitrary and disproportionate representation that allows money to take over the powerful seats allotted to the most backwards regions of the USA.

And I'm not saying the people there are bad because they're backwards; they're just more easily manipulated by capital and religion--they form the weak links in the chain.

[Outinleftfield]

This is extremely disappointing but in a way its an opportunity.

It's not like before the corporations didn't already control public policy. Even with spending limits they found plenty of ways around. They can make more than one corporation run by the same people, they can make political organizations funded by corporations, they can donate their own money, the list goes on and on for ways they could get around the limit before. Now the facade has dropped. When pointing out the corporate stranglehold on the media people can't say "oh but Congress has spending limits".

What we need to set out to do is convince people to ignore campaign ads and take anything heard in the media with a giant grain of salt. Basically if you don't actually go and research it yourself with sources besides the mainstream media pretend you didn't hear it. We need to educate people that the mainstream media will only keep feeding them lies. Anything it is trying to convince you of don't listen.

That's where there power lies, because people listen to their bullshit. They'd just be throwing all their money away if people just didn't listen.