Reaction to 'Citizens United': Swift and Sharp

Thursday's landmark decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission may, as the dissenters and many commentators are saying, "open the floodgates" of corporate campaign money. But before that, the biggest flood will be the outpouring of words about the ruling. The chattering classes and advocacy groups are on the case already.

Some hear in the decision a death knell for the entire structure of campaign finance reform, which has been based on the notion that some restraints can be constitutionally placed on the money that is spent in campaigns. Unsurprisingly, the Wall Street Journal celebrates the demise while the New York Times  attacks it, accusing the Court of plunging the nation back into the "robber-baron era of the 19th century." 

The Sunlight Foundation offers its views about campaign fund transparency here, and the Cato Institute rejoices here. The American Judicature Society worries about the impact on judicial elections here, and Covington & Burling views political parties as the big losers. People for the American Way launches a campaign for a constitutional amendment to overtrun the ruling, while Common Cause and Public Campaign see public funding as the remedy. The Pacific Legal Foundation applauds the ruling as a great vindication of the First Amendment. 

Other thoughtful analysis can be found at Slate, both here and  here, and at SCOTUSBlog, here and  here.  NLJ colleague Marcia Coyle analyzed the decision on the PBS News Hour. Doug Kendall of the Constitutional Accountability Center accused the Court of rewriting the Constitution at Huffington Post. WSJ's Law Blog wonders about the impact on the 2010 elections.  For more, check just about any other Web site you know of, except maybe this one. (Hat tip to Election Law Blog, SCOTUSBlog, How Appealing, and Public Policy Matters for help in aggregating these links.)   

Comments

[Lawrence J. Young]

The broad brush applied by the comments in the immediately preceding post obscures what took place and hence what has taken place with this mindless ruling of the usual suspects. Freedom of the press, a form of free speech, implicitly refers to the printed word, whatever its source may have been. The quoted case involved a rather large newspaper publishing entity being sued by an 'individual' who resented what the NYT was saying about civil rights.

Is this the same as what is being discussed and decided upon in the current action of the SCUS? Generally speaking are the motivations of a newspaper publishing entity editorializing about a particular political issue and the politicians associated with it, the same as those of Pfizer or United Health or GE when their spokesman expresses a viewpoint about a particular political issue and the politicians associated with it?
Hopefully not, and if so, therein lies one of the differences between the two situatons.

[Bruce Borrus]

It was surprising that the NY Times railed against the idea that corporations have First Amendment rights. The greatest First Amendment case of the 20th century protected a corporation. That case was NY Times v. Sullivan. The Times editorial board must have forgotten.

Analysis of the issue begins with the recognition that the First Amendment limits the power of Congress: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."

I am disappointed that four Justices think that Congress has the power to abridge freedom of speech and of the press.