Alito Defends 'Citizens' in Speech to Federalist Society

Justice Samuel Alito defended the 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on Thursday night, jabbing at critics of the U.S. Supreme Court's majority opinion but also admitting the success of their public relations campaign.

Alito said arguments can be made for overturning Citizens United, but not the popular one that boils down to one line: Corporations shouldn't get free speech rights like a person.

“It is pithy, it fits on a bumper sticker, and in fact a variety of bumper stickers are available,” Alito told a crowd of about 1,400 at The Federalist Society’s annual dinner. He cited two: “End Corporate Personhood,” and “Life does not begin at incorporation.”

Then Alito pointed out the same people do not question the First Amendment rights of media corporations in cases like The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, or the Pentagon papers case. If corporations did not have free speech rights, newspapers would lose such cases, he said.

Alito aded that nobody questioned whether First Amendment rights extended to the corporation that broadcast the awards speech during which Nicole Richie swore on air, an episode immortalized in Fox v Federal Communications Commission.

Alito censored himself when repeating Richie’s quote to the conservative crowd: “Have you ever tried to get cow bleep out of a Prada purse, it’s not so bleeping simple.”

Alito said the real issue is whether free speech rights “should be limited to certain preferred corporations, namely those media organizations.” And with the proliferation of the Internet and social media, the line is getting more blurry between individuals and media, he said.

The crowd heard a few zingers from Alito about how he learned constitutional law. Alito said Yale assigned him to the class of Charles Reich, a professor who had written several popular books about the decline of society. Reich thought “redemption could be found in the college hippie,” Alito said.

Reich started asking each student why they wanted to become a lawyer, and then engaged them in an extended debate. “This went on for weeks,” Alito said. The point he was trying to get across was that “there are no livable lives to be lived in the law.”

Reich also spent class time telling the students about a law firm at which one partner died during a tirade against an associate and another committed suicide by jumping down the elevator shaft.

One day, someone brought wine into class. “He began to chant, ‘Who put the acid in the wine, who put the acid in the wine,’ and that was the end of the class for the day,” Alito said. Soon, there was a note on the class door: “I have found it necessary to go to San Francisco, the rest of the classes are cancelled.”

“That was the end of my instruction in constitutional law,” Alito said, to applause from the audience. “I was forced to teach myself.”

Alito quipped that there were several books about constitutional law to buy and read, “but a beginner might start out by actually reading the text of the constitution.”

“It is hard not to notice that Congress’ powers are limited,” Alito said. “And you will see there is an amendment that comes right after the First Amendment, and there’s another that comes after the Ninth Amendment. Those are just a couple of examples.”

Comments

[Inis Magrath]

At the State of the Union address when President Obama noted that Citizens United would enable money from foreign nations to be injected into American politics, Alito famously mouthed, "That's not true."

Well, one presidential election later and we now know one thing with certainty: it is not possible to know whether foreign money was included in the vast SuperPAC coffers that flooded the campaign. The unavoidable conclusion is this: If you can't unequivocally rule it out, then it is completely possible that SuperPAC moneys included money from foreign nations.

I would have liked it if Alito had been asked about his glaring wrongness on that point.

[Terry Gou]

I am a Chinese billionaire quite willing to use my money to install in office whomever I want. Howard Hughes did it when he deposed the Senator. With Alito's help, now I can do it too

[bob]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

We place various limits on freedom of speech and our other First Amendment freedoms. The well-founded fear of unlimited corporate and union spending corrupting our elected officials and system of democracy seems like a very good reason to limit speech to most folks, whereas government limits on what newspapers and other media corporations can publish or broadcast do not, no matter what naughty words Nicole Richie says on TV.

[Steven Sweat]

I agree wholeheartedly with the comments of Alliance for Justice. This seems both improper and unethical for a sitting Supreme Court justice to be making "pithy" comments to a partisan crowd for fundraising purposes. The presidential race was vindication for the "little guy" despite the billions spent, Mr. Alito!

[Guest]

Mr. Loggins:
Justice Alito didn't say that NYT v. Sullivan was the Pentagon Papers case; that's the reporter's mistake. Justice Alito mentioned both as examples of historic cases that assumed that corporations had First Amendment rights.

[MarkS]

Another non-lawyer opinion. If a Supreme Court justice honestly does not know that freedom of the press is specifically guaranteed in the Constitution and therefore different than the Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson dumping millions of dollars into the election through various "fronts" we are truly in deep deep bleeped!

[RD Legal Funding]

An interesting perspective no doubt being that this decision has caused issues on both sides of the argument and has basically launched an arms race over what will happen to U.S. elections and the makeup of the Supreme Court.

[d bussey]

Anderson's post and Martin Jerisat's response point out for the need for an agreed upon satire font or marker.

[Dean]

His Honor is correct in one respect. We need as a country to decide whether corporations - creatures created by the state - should have rights separate and apart from those granted by their creator. I say they shouldn't. They aren't human. They have no soul or conscience. In fact, generally they have no reason to respect the rights of an individual.

[STAN SCHEINMAN]

The fact that a Justice Alito believes it is appropriate conduct to publically defend a decision of the Court while still serving AND permit his personna to be used to raise money for a partisan, controversial enterprise speaks volumes for the disgraceful radicalization of the Supreme Court by his cohorts leading to the undermining of trust so essential to our democratic institutions.
How can he justify his actions in light of the next United-type case which is already on its way to the Court asking for blessings on unlimited corporate contributions directly to candidates? Any bets on his recusal?

[sobi]

If cash is speech, and we and corporations are equal in our rights of free speech, then isn't compelled cash equivalent to compelled speech? Freedom in, after all, has been equated to freedom from in the freedom of religion clause.

I wish when government attempted to speak in principles, they would define those principles as elective, selective, or merely platitude when convenient. What they shouldn't do is attempt to rationalize or moralize a capitulation to big money.

[Kirk Loggins]

I'm not a lawyer, just a retired newspaper reporter in Nashville, Tenn. But I must tell you that Sullivan v. New York Times has nothing to do with the Pentagon papers. It came out of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Ala., around 1961, when a city official there felt he had been mistreated by the Times.

[Joe Citizen]

"Alito said the real issue is whether free speech rights “should be limited to certain preferred corporations, namely those media organizations.”"

Here is a solution, Sam. Speech rights go to individuals. "Freedom of the press" goes to media corporations.

[Martin Jerisat]

Why do these judges have life tenure? They should be limited to two terms.

[Harrison]

Anderson clearly does not have a clue as to the makeup of the Federalist Society. Alito would never find a LESS hostile crowd to crow his positions in. "Brave, brave, man???" His comments about his con. law professor are a coward's approach he could only get away with in a crowd such as the Federalist Society.

[Richard Winger]

I wish Justice Alito would show a similar concern for the First Amendment rights of voters who wish to vote for minor party or independent candidates. The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected all 52 cert petitions filed by independent and minor party candidates and voters over the last 20 years (of course, Justice Alito hasn't been on the Court that long, I realize). But during the same 20 years, seven times states have asked the Court to hear their election law cases that were lost in the lower court, and in 4 instances, the court accepted the case and reversed all 4 times. Now we have a system in which Oklahoma voters, for example, were forbidden from voting for any presidential candidate earlier this month except for Obama and Romney (write-ins are banned and no other candidates were on the ballot). We have a system in which independent voters in Connecticut can't get public funding without a petition signed by 20% of the voters, whereas Republican and Democratic candidates need no petition.

[Alliance for Justice]

Regardless of what one thinks of what Justice Alito said (and we don't think much of it) the real problem is having a Supreme Court Justice headline a fundraising dinner. If a judge in any other federal court did it, it would be a violation of the Code of Conduct for federal judges. But the code doesn't apply to Supreme Court justices. See our full statement, with Common Cause, here: http://afjjusticewatch.blogspot.com/2012/11/oops-theyre-doing-it-again-another.html

[Anderson]

What a brave, brave man to confront such a hostile audience over a controversial decision.