Curated News Edition
- 25/06/12
http://www.LibertyNewspost.com
Court Rejects Corporate Campaign Spending Limits - Wall Street Journal (Top Stories - Google News)
reconsider Citizens United or at least its application to the Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:08:36 PM Montana case. He said Montana's A Wall Street Journal Roundup experience "casts grave doubt on WASHINGTON—The U.S. the Court's supposition that Supreme Court declined to independent expenditures" by reconsider its 2010 Citizens corporations and unions "do not United ruling lifting restrictions corrupt or appear to do so." on corporate and union political The majority turned away pleas c o n t r i b u t i o n s , s u m m a r i l y from the court's liberal justices to overturning the Montana Supreme give a full hearing to the case Court in a case involving a b e c a u s e m a s s i v e c a m p a i g n Montana state law limiting spending since the January 2010 corporate political spending. ruling has called into question In an unsigned decision, the court some of its underpinnings. said "there can be no serious The same five justices said in doubt" that the holding in Citizens 2010 that corporations have a United v. FEC applies to the constitutional right to be heard in Montana state law. "Montana's election campaigns. The decision arguments in support" of the state paved the way for unlimited court ruling "either were already spending by corporations and rejected in Citizens United, or fail labor unions in elections for to meaningfully distinguish that Congress and the president, as case," the decision said. long as the dollars are Four liberal justices dissented independent of the campaigns from the decision. Justice Stephen they are intended to help. The Breyer, writing for the dissenters, decision, grounded in the freedom said he would have preferred to of speech, appeared to apply [unable to retrieve full-text
equally to state contests. But Montana aggressively defended its 1912 law against a challenge from corporations seeking to be free of spending limits, and the state Supreme Court sided with the state. The state court said a history of corruption showed the need for the limits, even as Justice Anthony Kennedy declared in his Citizens United opinion that independent expenditures by corporations "do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption." Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia, as well as Sen. John McCain and other congressional champions of stricter regulations on campaign money, joined with Montana. Two liberal justices who were in dissent in Citizens United—Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer—already had challenged Justice Kennedy's view that the independent campaign spending content]
could not be corrupting by virtue of the absence of links to a campaign. When the court blocked the Montana ruling in February, Justice Ginsburg issued a brief statement for herself and Justice Breyer saying that campaign spending since the decision makes "it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations 'do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.'" Justice Ginsburg appeared to be referring to the rise of unregulated super PACs that have injected millions of dollars into the presidential and other campaigns. She said the case "will give the court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates' allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway." The corporations that sued over the law said it could not remain
on the books after the Citizens United decision. Montana urged the high court to reject the appeal, or hold arguments and not issue what the court calls a summary reversal. The prevailing side in the lower court almost always strives to avoid high court review. But Montana and its supporters hoped a thorough debate over the Citizens United decision would lead to its reconsideration or at least limits on its reach.—The Associated Press contributed to this article. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.