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Citizens United
Topic Started: Dec 12 2012, 12:37 PM (90 Views)
uB|Quacklesnap
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Your thoughts?

Most of the backlash against the ruling has been that it will screw up campaign finance, but that's not how the S.C. is supposed to rule. The outcome of their decision is irrelevant to whether it's constitutional or not. And in my view, it's constitutional. It makes sense that anything you do to advocate for a political candidate should be protected by the first amendment.

The other point of contention is that "money =/= speech" but that argument is weird. Of course money isn't speech, in the way a tree isn't a calculator or pink isn't blue. However, it's been the case for a while that spending money to advocate for someone running for office is protected by the government. Even back in the 1970s, all the judges on the S.C. agreed that this is a constitutionally protected thing you can do, so if you disagree that spending money to advocate for causes isn't protected by the first amendment, just know that you're disagreeing with even the liberal judges at the time.

The ruling wasn't just for corporations either. Citizens United was for both unions and corporations, before that neither could donate unlimited and anonymously. But since the ruling, many states have passed laws banning unions from spending dues money on political efforts without individual approval, basically excluding unions from the ruling but not corporations. That leaves us with a good decision but a sad state of affairs, at least as far as campaign finance is concerned.
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uB|tomtom
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Tall Kid

Throw us a link, brotato.
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uB|Quacklesnap
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This happened two years ago it isn't a current news story.
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