Toddsterpatriot
Diamond Member
- May 3, 2011
- 103,411
- 37,021
Money isn't free speech.
Go back almost a century, to the time when the modern corporation was created, and you’ll find laws that prohibit or limit the use of corporate money in elections. And yet this week, a 5-4 Supreme Court struck down the limits that Congress passed in 2002 in this tradition in the case Citizens United v. FEC.
The majority’s ruling unleashes a new wave of campaign cash and adds to the already considerable power of corporations. The court’s main rationale is that limits on using corporate treasuries for campaigns are a “classic example of censorship,” as Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. To get there, Kennedy depends on two legal theories that blossomed as constitutional principles in the mid-1970s: money is speech and corporations are people. Both theories are strange, if not simply wrongheaded—why, according to the Constitution or common sense, would money be speech or corporations be people? The court has also employed theories not uniformly but, rather, as constitutional cover for dominance of the electoral system by corporations and by the wealthy.
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The misguided theories behind Citizens United v. FEC.
Go back almost a century, to the time when the modern corporation was created, and you'll find laws that prohibit or limit the use of corporate money...slate.com
Money isn't free speech.
You can't stop free speech, even if it makes Hillary Clinton look bad.