Posts tagged Supreme Court
Holding Politicians Accountable
The Supreme Court did the right thing today (finally):
“The Supreme Court declined on Monday to review a challenge to the ban on direct campaign contributions by corporations.
“The petitioners, William Danielczyk Jr. and Eugene Biagi, argued the ban on political donations from corporations to candidates and party committees was unconstitutional. They said a review of the ban was warranted after the high court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, which let corporations spend unlimited funds advocating for or against candidates.
“The current Supreme Court has already taken steps to ease restrictions on campaign giving, and many good-government groups feared the long-standing ban on corporate donations would be the next barrier to fall.”
The right to vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democracy. I risked my life defending that right. Some died in the struggle. If we are ever to actualize the true meaning of equality, effective measures such as the Voting Rights Act are still a necessary requirement of democracy.
Justice Scalia on Campaign Finance
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia talked about campaign finance during an appearance on CNN last night. Here’s what he had to say, via TPM (emphasis added, related to this week’s debate on DISCLOSE):
Asked whether the controversial Citizens United ruling, which affirmed unlimited spending to influence elections, has led to an abuse of the political process, Scalia rejected the view.
“No, I think Thomas Jefferson would have said the more speech the better,” the justice said. “That’s what the First Amendment is all about. So long as the people know where the speech is coming from. … You can’t separate speech from the money that facilitates the speech. It’s utterly impossible. Could you tell newspaper publishers you could only spend so much money in the publication of the newspapers?”
“I think, as I think the framers thought, that the more speech the better. Now, you are entitled to know where the speech is coming from. You know, information as to who contributed what. That’s something else.”
New York Times editorial on yesterday’s Montana decision:
The court’s five conservative justices struck down a Montana law that prohibited corporate spending in elections — a law passed in 1912 not out of some theoretical concern about money corrupting elections but to put an end to actual influence-buying by copper barons.
State officials told the court that fighting corruption required them to maintain limits on corporate election spending. A series of friend-of-the-court briefs urged the justices to allow other states to impose similar laws, citing the out-of-control spending unleashed since 2010.
“Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired from the Supreme Court two years ago, accused his former colleagues in a speech Wednesday night of inconsistency, if not incoherence, in their rulings in the aftermath of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the blockbuster 2010 campaign finance decision.” (NYT)
