Posted on 03/09/2012 9:56:28 AM PST by Chuckmorse
The simple answer is no, the Citizens United decision was not an activist Supreme Court decision. The Citizens United decision upheld the principle that organized groups, whether they are corporations, unions, or for that matter groups such as the National Organization of Women, a corporation, have the right to engage in political speech and political activism in the form of supporting candidates and causes with money and in-kind support. Citizens United upheld the Constitutional principle of the right to assemble and to seek redress of grievances. By rendering their decision, the Supreme Court upheld the right of any group, which by definition would mean any organization made up of three or more people, to express themselves politically.
Big money in politics is certainly a problem, whether the money emanates from a corporation, from billionaires such as Sheldon Adelson, George Soros, or from the Koch brothers, from foundations such as the Ford Foundation or the Tides Foundation, or from any other combine of wealth seeking to influence politics. This is a complicated problem but the answer is not to ban political speech or political expression. Money, in these cases, is used as a means to amplify political expression by supporting candidates and purchasing media. How to address this issue without interfering in constitutionally protected speech is a question for another column. The focus here is on whether Citizens United was an “activist” decision as claimed by various liberals.
Judicial activism has taken on a bad name in recent decades which is why some liberals are desperately trying to find a judicial case that has been decided by conservative jurists that they can label as activist. Indeed, liberals have proudly supported an activist judiciary going back to the 1935 attempt by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to “pack” the Supreme Court after the court declared the NRA to be unconstitutional. One of the champions of Roosevelt’s court packing scheme, a high level official of his administration and a well-regarded progressive, was Alger Hiss. Roosevelt’s court packing scheme energized conservative opposition to judicial activism, a position that has consistently remained as a conservative cause ever since. Recently pollster Frank Luntz promoted the issue quite eloquently when he drew a contrast between the more conservative advocacies of a democratic judicial approach versus the authoritarian liberal view on the role of an activist judiciary.
What is judicial activism and why do liberals, going back to Roosevelt’s court packing scheme and the Warren Court, support it? Judicial activism occurs when judges make decisions based upon factors and principles that are either outside of the purview of the Constitution or that outright contradict the meaning and intent of the Constitution. In other words, judicial activism occurs when judges make law from the bench either by contorting or ignoring the Constitution. The Constitution, both the US and the state constitutions, hold that elected representatives serving in legislative bodies make law based upon the will of the citizens who elect them. Those laws are subject to review by the federal and state judiciary which is charged with determining the constitutionality of those laws.
Liberals prefer that judges, as opposed to legislatures, make law since judges are appointed as opposed to elected. Judges don’t have to reflect the will of the people, they don’t have to be popular, and this insulates them from a degree of meaningful criticism when they render their decision. Judges making law is a lot cleaner than the messy and laborious process of electing enough sympathetic representatives to a legislator to pass a liberal law. It’s much easier to have a sympathetic and unaccountable appointed Judge simply declare something as legal than having to go through the process of defending a position through rational debate. The liberal position is the very essence of authoritarianism.
A popular urban myth that has built up around Citizens United is that the Supreme Court declared corporations as “people.” This is a complete lie. There is no record today or historically that any court has declared corporations or any group to be a person. The principle underlying Citizens United, to re-iterate, is that individuals have a right to organize, or to “assemble” to use the constitutional term, and to then, as such, express political opinions and take political actions. In this sense, the group, or the “corporation” has the same right as a person to express political opinion but it is absurd to therefore claim that the court views the voluntary group, or the “corporation” literally as a person. Perhaps liberals are imposing their own collectivist view in this regard. At any rate, this corporation as a person charge is false.
Since liberals cannot rationally argue that Citizens United is activist, and since they cannot find any other example of a conservative judicial opinion that is activist, liberals have resorted to the lie that the conservative judges on the Supreme Court, when rendering their decision on Citizens United, ruled on an issue that was not a part of the original case before them. This is another falsehood, a complete myth that is repeated over and over again. I defy anyone to demonstrate the evidence that this occurred.
Besides lying about the case by claiming that the process of deciding the case was “activist” as a means of avoiding the case itself, which was obviously not activist, liberal commentators are challenging the legitimacy of the entire edifice of the independent judiciary with this charge. Judges, in order to maintain their independence, must be free to exercise the maximum leeway in terms of how they deliberate on a case before them. Only the decision itself can be deemed to be either activist or constitutional, not the means of getting to the decision. This line of reasoning is essentially an attack on an independent judiciary.
Of course, I'd personally like to see labor unions prohibited from donating to political campaigns. They're nothing more than extortion rackets and I'd lend 100% support to a Conservative candidate that finds a means to RICO those corrupt outfits out of America forever. In my book, unions aren't comprised of people, they're made up of goons.
The Supreme Court did, in fact, order plaintiffs and defendants to re-brief and re-argue the case broader than either side intended.
Other than that, you are correct this decision did not establish corporate personhood, as liberals like to shout every day. It merely reaffirmed it.
"More Rights" you ask? Yes... Different tax laws, liabilities under both regulation and law, personal indemnity, ... The list they've carved for themselves is impressive.
A person has Rights. A corporation is Property.
Logic 101.
The correct answer is HELL NO!
The CU decision was the very opposite of judicial activism. The First Amendment is absolute. You cannot attach any asterisks to it.
If the CU decision went the other way, it would create an irresistible temptation for government to define any speech it didn’t like as “corporate” in order to silence it. It would be the end of the First Amendment.
Hardly. Slander? Libel? Child porn?
If the CU decision went the other way, it would create an irresistible temptation for government to define any speech it didn’t like as “corporate” in order to silence it. It would be the end of the First Amendment.
Citizens United wasn't that broad. In the end, it had more to do with whether or not corporations could fund certain political ads using their general treasury funds.
No, actually at this point, a corporation has more advantages in terms of donations. If simple terms of donations, an actual individual is limited to donation size, without using the vessel of a corporation to donate.
While a corporation is free to have a unlimited donation limit. That's how I read it, if I'm wrong, please correct me. Always learning here.
The libs haven’t thought this one through. If a corporation is not a person with regard to 1st amendment freedom of speech matters then they are not a person with regard to 1st amendment freedom of press matters either. Thus, if the liberal view prevailed then the goverment could regulate what the NY Times (or any corporate media) prints every day. Do they really want to go there?
Corporations cannot donate directly to federal candidates (although that's in some flux right now).
They can donate to parties, PACs, super PACs, etc.
Citizens United was more about whether corporate donations to influence elections via advertising can come from pot of money A (as was the case) or pot of money B (as the Supreme Court said was kosher).
Exactly right. I've used this same tactic to silence libs more times than I can count.
If corporations have no constitutional rights, as libs maintain then:
The FBI can raid the offices of Planned Parenthood, without a warrant, and demand their financial records, patient records, etc
Local police can wiretap SEIU's phones without a warrant, probable cause and so on.
If the NAACP wanted to express itself by having a rally in a park, publishing a letter in the paper, or other tactics the local sheriff can shut them down.
When you get the libs to concede government can't do the above, they unwittingly concede corporations have some but not all constitutional rights individuals have. And that's the current state of the law - some, not all.
Public entities can have no expectation of privacy. Public. Private. The definitions speak for themselves...
If Planned Parenthood, the SEIU, and the NAACP are all being fed from tax money, then they are PUBLIC entities and should not be afforded the protections given PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Clearly you trust government more than I do.
Because I don't think anything in the Bill of Rights is absolute?
Wake up. Not even the founding fathers thought those rights were absolute.
Ah... Another fan of "penumbras" and "emanations" from our "living document" Constitution. Where words don't mean things, infringements are a-ok, and judicial activism has it's playground.
Please feel free to correct this impression.
Please feel free to correct this impression.
I don't believe freedom of speech gives one the right to libel or slander their fellow citizens without legal recourse.
I don't think freedom of speech allows one to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater and not be cited by police or punished by a court when, in fact, there was no fire.
I don't think freedom of religion stands for allowing people to legally sacrifice animals.
Despite the Second Amendment, I think government has the authority to outlaw people like Charles Whitman and Jared Lee Loughner from owning guns.
Even with (what's left of) the Fourth Amendment, I think there are circumstances when police do not need a search warrant - such as when an obviously dangerous criminal suspect flees police and hides in his home.
Now, maybe you think it's OK if a fellow FR poster posts, "Dead Corpse just assaulted a school bus full of children" and you would be left with zero legal recourse.
I don't think that's the case. Scalia, Thomas, Alito, etc do not think that's the case. And, most importantly, none of the founding fathers did, either.
"People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or some contrivance to raise prices." - Adam SmithThat quote is generally cited against business monopolies, but it is clearly explicitly an anti-union sentiment as well.As well as, I would argue, an argument against the Associated Press and other wire services. The AP was found to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act back in 1945. It was “too big to fail” back then, but now its mission of conservation of bandwidth in the transmission of the news is - with the advent of laser, fiber optic, microwave, and satellite communication - an anachronism.
Both covered under Fraud statutes.
I don't think freedom of speech allows one to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater and not be cited by police or punished by a court when, in fact, there was no fire.
Actually, you CAN yell "fire" in a theater, if the theater is actually on fire. Again, "criminal mischief" and "inciting a riot" cause actual damage to others. a priori restraint on free speech is not necessary and is covered in the writings of the Founders.
I don't think freedom of religion stands for allowing people to legally sacrifice animals.
Animals are property. What if you belonged to the Cult of the Dead Cow and held services at Burger King? Should they then be shut down because you find cattle slaughter "icky"?
Despite the Second Amendment, I think government has the authority to outlaw people like Charles Whitman and Jared Lee Loughner from owning guns.
No. They don't. In fact, if more people had access to personal arms, the "one off nut cases" would never cause as much damage as they do without being removed form the gene pool permanently. Nice way to use Brady Bunch logic to shore up a really stupid opinion though...
Even with (what's left of) the Fourth Amendment, I think there are circumstances when police do not need a search warrant - such as when an obviously dangerous criminal suspect flees police and hides in his home.
"Obviously"? Are every one of your "points" going to be this subjective. If it's that "obvious" he's "dangerous", get a warrant and go in after him.
Now, maybe you think it's OK if a fellow FR poster posts, "Dead Corpse just assaulted a school bus full of children" and you would be left with zero legal recourse.
Not at all. The Constitution, Bill of Rights, and powers left to the State adequately address those concerns. You just need to use them as written and not try to make end runs around them.
I don't think that's the case. Scalia, Thomas, Alito, etc do not think that's the case. And, most importantly, none of the founding fathers did, either.
Actually, yeah... The Founders are on my side...
"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Justice William Johnson, June 12, 1823
"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure." - Letter to Justice William Johnson, June 12, 1823 Read more: http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/quotes-by-thomas-jefferson.html#ixzz1oexTIP3Q "Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure." - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Justice William Johnson, June 12, 1823
A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution is power without a right. All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning. It must be either delegated, or assumed. There are not other sources. All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either. - Thomas Paine
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity. Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address.
IOW... you aren't just wrong, you outright lied.
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