A Case of Shoddy Scholarship
james g. keegan jr.
Sunday 24 January 2010
by: Ruth Marcus, Op-Ed
Washington - In opening the floodgates for corporate money in election
campaigns, the Supreme Court did not simply engage in a brazen power
grab. It did so in an opinion stunning in its intellectual dishonesty.
Many of those commenting on the decision in Citizens United v. Federal
Election Commission have focused on the power grab part. I agree. It was
unnecessary for the court to go so far when there were several
less-radical grounds available. It was audacious to seize the
opportunity to overrule precedents when the parties had not pressed this
issue and the lower courts not considered it. It was the height of
activism to usurp the judgments of Congress and state legislatures about
how best to prevent corruption of the political process.
"If it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide
more," a wise judge once wrote. That was Chief Justice John Roberts --
back when -- and dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens rightly turned
that line against him.
As bad as the court's activism, though, was its shoddy scholarship.
First, the majority flung about dark warnings of "censorship" and
"banned" speech as if upholding the existing rules would leave
corporations and labor unions with no voice in the political process.
Untrue. Under federal election law before the Supreme Court demolished
it, corporations and labor unions were free to say whatever they wanted
about political candidates whenever they wanted to say it. They simply
were not permitted to use unlimited general treasury funds to do so.
Instead, they were required to use money raised by their political
action committees from employees and members. This is hardly banning
speech.
Second, in the face of logic and history, the majority acted as if there
could be no constitutional distinction between a corporation and a human
being. Untrue. The Supreme Court has long held that corporations are
considered "persons" under the Constitution and therefore entitled to
its protections. For more than a century, Congress has barred
corporations from making direct contributions to political candidates,
with no suggestion that it must treat corporate persons the same as real
ones; that prohibition stands, at least for now. The "conceit" of
corporate personhood, as Stevens called it, does not mandate absolute
equivalence. That corporations enjoy free speech protections does not
mean they enjoy every protection afforded an actual person. Is a
corporation entitled to vote? To run for office?
Third, misreading its precedents and cherry-picking quotations, the
majority acted as if the chief case it overturned was an outlier. In
that 1990 case, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a six-member
majority came to the unsurprising conclusion that a state law
prohibiting corporations from making unlimited independent expenditures
from their general funds was constitutional. The court dismissed this
ruling as "a significant departure from ancient First Amendment
principles." Again, untrue.
In a 1982 case, the court -- in a unanimous opinion by then-Justice
William Rehnquist -- noted that Congress, in writing campaign finance
law, was entitled to "considerable deference" in taking into account
"the particular legal and economic attributes of corporations and labor
organizations" and had made "a permissible assessment of the dangers
posed by those entities to the electoral process." Four years later,
even as it carved out an exception for nonprofit corporations, the court
reaffirmed "the need to restrict the influence of political war chests
funneled through the corporate form."
The Citizens United majority relied heavily on a 1978 case overturning a
Massachusetts law that prohibited corporations from spending their own
money to defeat certain referendums. But that case specifically noted
that "a corporation's right to speak on issues of general public
interest implies no comparable right in the quite different context of
participation in a political campaign for election to public office."
Fourth, the majority bizarrely invoked the "Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington" defense. Under the Austin ruling, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
argued, lawmakers unhappy with being lampooned in the movie "could have
done more than discourage its distribution -- they could have banned the
film." Beyond untrue. There is no scenario under which works of art
about fictional lawmakers could be limited by campaign finance laws.
That the majority would stoop to this claim underscores the weakness of
its case -- and the audacity of the result it has inflicted on the
political process.
W.T.S.
news:jgkeegan-1923F7...@news.individual.net...
"Wise Latino Woman", voted with the minority. She was against opening the
flood gates. Sometimes the most conservative can be the most activist, and
the most liberal, the best defender of the law as written. Strange. Most
of the "majority" vote seems to have been the more "conservative" members.
Very strange indeed.
--
http://folding.stanford.edu
Save lives, visit today!
Ray Fischer
Not so strange. The so-called "conservatives" are, in realty,
anything but. They are pro-business, pro-government, and
anti-citizen, just like all of the other "conservatives" that
have infected the GOP.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
W.T.S.
news:4b5d2b10$0$1594$742e...@news.sonic.net...
> rfis...@sonic.net
Good point! I hadn't looked at it from that angle. Large corporations seem
to be strong supporters of the Republicans, even the ones involved in the
most recent economic melt down and other "naughty" behavior. Now
corporations, like health insurance companies, can spend huge amounts of
money on political ads. I'm anxious to see the Saturday Night Live parodies
of such corporate ads! Heck, they may be so over the top as to be parody
proof. We'll have to wait and see. As far as I can tell, it may take a
constitutional amendment to correct this crazy ruling.
Ray Fischer
An amendment that says that a person is a natual born human being, for
example? That would eliminate any notion that corporations deserve
rights.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
The Chief Instigator
It may require more than that, considering the current corporate mentality.
I won't be surprised at all if history pinpoints 2010 January 21st as the
effective end of the Constitution.
--
Patrick L. "The Chief Instigator" Humphrey (pat...@io.com) Houston, Texas
www.io.com/~patrick/aeros.php (TCI's 2009-10 Houston Aeros) AA#2273
LAST GAME: Houston 5, Abbotsford 4 (OT, January 23)
NEXT GAME: Wednesday, January 27 at Chicago, 7:05
W.T.S.
news:slrnhls5n0....@eris.io.com...
With huge amounts of money, and political ads, corporations can "tilt" the
outcome of most elections to favor candidates who won't "obstruct"
corporation profit making (taking risks with other people's money) and a
host of other measures favorable to corporate "ideals". There's no way any
individual or group, even unions, could even begin to match corporate
spending. To make matters much, much worse, the American people still elect
people based on the content of political ads, innocently believing they must
be true if they're on TV. Most Americans don't even watch the 5:30 news,
much less check out a second source. Corporations will play the American
people like fiddles. To classify money as "speech" is absurd, but there it
is. There's no end to it now, even between elections. Perhaps we'll need a
full scale "crash and burn" of our entire system before this can be
corrected. According to the news, the same people who brought you this
ruling will next want to stop the ads and such for telling the viewers who
paid for the ad and on whose behalf it was made, or even who approved it.
After all, that might give the viewers a clue to the motives behind the ad.
Ray Fischer
>A Case of Shoddy Scholarship
That's what happens when you determine your conclusion to fit your
ideology and then look for justifications to support your ideology.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
W.T.S.
"W.T.S." <m1...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:...
> "The Chief Instigator" <pat...@io.com> wrote in message
> news:slrnhls5n0....@eris.io.com...
>> On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:05:53 -0600, W.T.S. <m1...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>> "Ray Fischer" <rfis...@sonic.net> wrote in message
>>> news:4b5d2b10$0$1594$742e...@news.sonic.net...
>>>> W.T.S. <m1...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>>>>"james g. keegan jr." <jgke...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>>>>news:jgkeegan-1923F7...@news.individual.net...
>>>>>> A Case of Shoddy Scholarship
W.T.S.
james g. keegan jr.
rfis...@sonic.net (Ray Fischer) wrote:
> james g. keegan jr. <jgke...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >A Case of Shoddy Scholarship
>
> That's what happens when you determine your conclusion to fit your
> ideology and then look for justifications to support your ideology.
thus, the person posting as peter nyikos actually has something in
common with justice roberts.
pnyikos
> In article <4b5e67b9$0$1601$742ec...@news.sonic.net>,
> rfisc...@sonic.net (Ray Fischer) wrote:
>
> > james g. keegan jr. <jgkee...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >A Case of Shoddy Scholarship
>
> > That's what happens when you determine your conclusion to fit your
> > ideology and then look for justifications to support your ideology.
>
> thus, the person posting as peter nyikos actually has something in
> common with justice roberts.
Thought you could hide this TbBA about me in this thread, eh? :-)
Fact is, Blackmun was far more like Roberts in that respect, assuming
the above is an accurate description of what Roberts did. Blackmun
even claimed in RvW that the compelling state interest in maintaining
life starts at viability, because that is when a fetus can live
outside the womb, albeit with artificial aid.
Justice White aptly pointed out that this was a definition
masquerading as a justification.
Peter Nyikos
james g. keegan jr.
<c1e88136-2ad5-4494...@k35g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> On Jan 26, 3:10�pm, "james g. keegan jr." <jgkee...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > In article <4b5e67b9$0$1601$742ec...@news.sonic.net>,
> > �rfisc...@sonic.net (Ray Fischer) wrote:
> >
> > > james g. keegan jr. <jgkee...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >A Case of Shoddy Scholarship
> >
> > > That's what happens when you determine your conclusion to fit your
> > > ideology and then look for justifications to support your ideology.
> >
> > thus, the person posting as peter nyikos actually has something in
> > common with justice roberts.
>
> Thought you could hide this TbBA about me in this thread, eh? :-)
thnak you for proving the accuracy of the assertion.
>
> Fact is, Blackmun was far more like Roberts in that respect, assuming
> the above is an accurate description of what Roberts did. Blackmun
> even claimed in RvW that the compelling state interest in maintaining
> life starts at viability, because that is when a fetus can live
> outside the womb, albeit with artificial aid.
>
> Justice White aptly pointed out that this was a definition
> masquerading as a justification.
shoddy scholorship again
The Chief Instigator
I'm hoping I'm wrong about this, but with the corporate mentality the way it
is, I'll keep my honesty, and I'll state my opinion whether the hired guns
for the corporations oppose it or not. (I have more than a few in-laws in
the Dakotas, but after 45 years down here an hour away from the Gulf, I'd
rather like to still be able to wear T-shirts in January, as it was up in
the low 70s today.)
Ray Fischer
>On Jan 26, 3:10�pm, "james g. keegan jr." <jgkee...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> In article <4b5e67b9$0$1601$742ec...@news.sonic.net>,
>> �rfisc...@sonic.net (Ray Fischer) wrote:
>>
>> > james g. keegan jr. <jgkee...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > >A Case of Shoddy Scholarship
>>
>> > That's what happens when you determine your conclusion to fit your
>> > ideology and then look for justifications to support your ideology.
>>
>> thus, the person posting as peter nyikos actually has something in
>> common with justice roberts.
>
>Thought you could hide this TbBA about me in this thread, eh? :-)
>
>Fact is, Blackmun was far more like Roberts in that respect,
Another TbBA, and from a non-credible source, AND a non sequitur at
that.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net