Posted on 02/18/2012 11:17:53 AM PST by Steelfish
Two Justices Suggest Citizens United Ruling Should Be Reconsidered In Montana Case
Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, center, and Stephen G. Breyer, second from right, suggested Friday that the court reconsider its controversial 2010 decision that allowed unlimited corporate and union spending in elections.
By Robert Barnes February 17
Two Supreme Court justices suggested Friday that the court reconsider its controversial 2010 decision that allowed unlimited corporate and union spending in elections.
The suggestion came as the court blocked a Montana Supreme Court decision upholding a century-old ban on corporate campaign spending in the state.
The Montana ruling seems squarely at odds with the court’s 5 to 4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allowed unlimited corporate spending. The U.S. Supreme Court majority had said such independent spending did not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.
In Friday’s order, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer said the upheaval in the world of campaign finance since the Citizens United decision does not bear out the majority opinion.
“Montana’s experience, and experience elsewhere since this court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations ‘do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,’ ” Ginsburg wrote.
“A petition for certiorari [from those challenging the Montana court’s decision] will give the court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway.”
The U.S. high court’s action Friday does not necessarily mean that it will hear the Montana case; it could later summarily reverse the Montana court’s decision.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The Left has always had ‘unlimited’ campaign spending excused. When the Right starts to get in the game, they want to change the rules.
Corporations are not brick and mortar.
Word Origin & History
corporation
1530s, “persons united in a body for some purpose,” from such use in Anglo-Latin, from L. corporationem, noun of action from corporare “to embody” (see corporate). Meaning “legally authorized entity” (including municipal governments and modern business companies) is from 1610s.
The funds raised in these FReepathons go to pay our current quarter expenses. But we're also going to try to replace some of our older servers and failing equipment this year so we're going to add a little extra to our FReepathon goals. John is estimating ten to fifteen thousand to do this and I'd like to get it all in place and working before the election cycle is fully heated up, so we'll try to bring in a little extra now, if we can, and the rest next quarter.
Jim Robinson
I thought that when the USSC made a decision that was that?! Unless some new case came along that tested some new aspect of the law the previous ruling was entitled to stand. Now we have two of the most liberal members of the court who would like the past ruling reviewed for little more reason that they came out on the short-side of a 5-4 decision. Incredible!
This is probably one of the few things that didn’t go the Tyrant’s way during his first term in office.
The underlying truth is that “corporate civil rights”, which have been around since Lincoln, need to be split from individual rights as expressed in the Bill of Rights.
It began when individual state legislatures decided to force national companies to, at great expense, obey their state laws to employ unneeded and unwanted people, though these corporations were just passing through their state enroute to somewhere else.
The legal concept was created by a Supreme Court reporter, who then asked the Chief Justice if his interpretation was correct. The single justice agreed that this was what “all the justices were *thinking*”.
Lincoln then designated a subordinate to “flesh out” the concept and he did. And it is now the centerpiece of corporate law that corporations share all the rights found in the Bill of Rights, as if they were living persons.
So, it is a fairly simple matter for a constitutional amendment to state:
“Corporations need rights, but these rights are separate and different from the individual rights of persons.”
As the law stands right now, eventually corporations can assert rights that are unacceptable, and already corporate law is so wrapped around corporate individual rights that business litigation is becoming glacial in speed.
The left’s approach to its power relationship with the right is this: what’s ours is ours, what’s yours is under continual review.
-PJ
Can we revisit Roe v Wade?
Hey GinzBerg and Breyer...you want to revisit a decision,,,go back to the commerce clause decisions...take your pick....they all sucked.
Yeah, well two justices and a buck-fifty will get you a cup of coffee.
They thought this ruling would work more to the advantage of democrats but are now finding out that some republicans have learned to play the game as well as the democrats.
Now they want a Re-Do.
A buck at McDonalds plus the 6.25 cents collected by the Sheriff of Nottingham.
It's natural that scumbag socialists like Ginsburg and Breyer would assume corruption to be the normal order of things - - they are Democrats, after all and so in their minds, OF COURSE politicians are routinely bought and sold.
I prefer the Reagan attitude: "People don't donate to my campaign because they want to change my position on the issues; they donate to my campaign because they like my position on the issues."
I have to believe these two scumbags, Ginsburg and Breyer, are working in collusion with the Ubanga White House the same way George Snuffleupagus and ABC News work with the Ubanga White House.
That is only the recent interpretation.
Business law has long been seen as a different thing than common and civil law. Individual rights were “endowed by the creator”, but business charters were “bestowed by government”.
“Corporate law at the time was focused on protection of the public interest, and not on the interests of corporate shareholders. Corporate charters were closely regulated by the states. Forming a corporation usually required an act of legislature. Investors generally had to be given an equal say in corporate governance, and corporations were required to comply with the purposes expressed in their charters. Many private firms in the 19th century avoided the corporate model for these reasons.”
The first real appreciation for corporations in the US happened in 1819, when the U. S. Supreme Court granted corporations a plethora of rights they had not previously recognized or enjoyed. Corporate charters were deemed “inviolable”, and not subject to arbitrary amendment or abolition by state governments. The Corporation as a whole was labeled an “artificial person,” possessing both individuality and immortality.
But only with the Lincoln-era SCOTUS were civil rights finally bestowed on corporations, as dramatic a leap as the 14th Amendment recognizing, if not bestowing, the civil rights of former slaves.
But the difference between “God-given” and “government-given” civil rights requires a special legal framework and body of law that specifically grants the corporation legal personality, and typically views a corporation as a fictional person, a legal person, or a moral person (as opposed to a natural person).
Yet in the final analysis, civil rights are a zero sum game, as government bestowing civil rights on corporations inherently *diminishes* the God-given natural rights of individuals.
How can one move to be a corporation ex. like a LLC, enjoying certain protections in bankruptcy and tax filings then enjoy at the same time individual rights during regular course of business?
They don't mind the union spending.
It's the spending of non-Democrats that they object to.
It is. Unless the liberals lose. Then they keep retrying the same case until they win. Then that is that.
The next president will get to replace 2 or 3 Supreme Court Justices. Supreme Court Justices stick around for at least 30 years.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
The underlying truth is that "freedom of the press" is best understood in today's context as the right of the people to spend their own money to use technical means - whether ink and paper and printing presses, or web sites and servers, or anything in between - to promote their own political, theological, or any other opinion. The framers of the Constitution could not foresee the progress of communication technology over the past two centuries, but they did give Congress the charter "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." So there is no issue with the medium, and (if the two taboo subjects for polite discussion are explicitly covered by the First Amendment) there is no issue with the content either.Another underlying truth is that the only corporation which should be censored (as being a monopoly which must be broken up) is not General Electric or Ford or Apple, it is the Associated Press. No other corporation has unaccountable political power in the same way that the AP does. And the AP was held to be a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act way back in 1945.
The other underlying truth is that monopoly journalism promotes itself and, in so doing, inherently promotes criticism at the expense of accomplishment. And that means that it inherently promotes leftism.
The underlying truth is that "freedom of the press" is best understood in today's context as the right of the people to spend their own money to use technical means - whether ink and paper and printing presses, or web sites and servers, or anything in between - to promote their own political, theological, or any other opinion. The framers of the Constitution could not foresee the progress of communication technology over the past two centuries, but they did give Congress the charter "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." So there is no issue with the medium, and (if the two taboo subjects for polite discussion are explicitly covered by the First Amendment) there is no issue with the content either.Another underlying truth is that the only corporation which should be censored (as being a monopoly which must be broken up) is not General Electric or Ford or Apple, it is the Associated Press. No other corporation has unaccountable political power in the same way that the AP does. And the AP was held to be a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act way back in 1945.
The other underlying truth is that monopoly journalism promotes itself and, in so doing, inherently promotes criticism at the expense of accomplishment. And that means that it inherently promotes leftism.
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