Roberts wrote in 2011 that public funding “substantially burdens political speech”. If a privately funded candidate was significantly outspending them, the public subsidy would go up. Candidates who took public money agreed to limits. It provided public funding for statewide campaigns. Its goals were to diminish the influence of special interest money, have more candidates bringing ideas, free politicians from eternal fundraising so they could go do their jobs, and give voters more choices. The 1998 Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Act passed by referendum, was clearly what the people really wanted. In 2008, the court said this “impermissibly burdens” the millionaire. The amendment said that if the millionaire passed a certain threshold of self-spending, the limit regular people can spend on his opponent could be raised. There were no restrictions on what a mega-millionaire could spend on himself. The Millionaires Amendment. There was a limit on the size of contributions that individuals could give. Let us look at other “free speech” cases. The answer is not in what Supreme Court justices say. Idealistic love for free speech? Or corrupt? Democracy is premised on responsiveness.” … It is well understood that a substantial and legitimate reason, if not the only reason, to cast a vote for, or to make a contribution to, one candidate over another is that the candidate will respond by producing those political outcomes the supporter favors. “Favoritism and influence are not … avoidable in representative politics. Justice Kennedy, who wrote the decision, quoted himself from another decision: Doing favours for money was renamed: “Responsiveness.” Because unions were bad and corporations were good?) Access and influence can’t be corruption. (There are shareholders that might not agree with corporate political spending, but that reasoning could not be applied to businesses. Union spending can be restricted, however, because there might be members who disagree and that would violate their free speech rights. The spending of money on political campaigns can’t be limited, it said, because it would be a limitation of free speech – a clear violation of the First Amendment. The court ruled that corporations have all the free speech rights of human beings, because they are associations of human beings. What’s in it – behind the clutter of citations – is astonishing. Then, in January 2010, they made their decision. They sent it back to be re-argued with the stuff they wanted added in. “Essentially, five Justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.” Justice John Paul Stevens spelled it out. Judges are supposed to rule only on things that are in a case. To quote Roberts, “The cardinal principle of judicial restraint – if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more.” The bigger problem was that Citizens United hadn’t argued that the whole law might be unconstitutional. The court could have easily decided on the question in front of them, “Can Citizens United show the film?”, while leaving most of the campaign financing law intact. The case was about those 30 days before the 2008 Democratic primary election. According to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), it couldn’t be shown within 30 days of a primary election. Even their supporters on the Supreme Court said it was really electioneering. ![]() ![]() Then in August 2008, Citizens United v Federal Election Commission came along.Ĭitizens United, an eager boutique in the right-wing propaganda business, had made Hillary: The Movie. ![]() Like Chuck Norris jokes.Ĭhief Justice John Roberts, along with Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas, wanted to destroy campaign finance laws. The Supreme Court is so corrupt that they can’t see corruption when it’s in their mirror.Īll of these should be absurd, comic, hyperbole. ![]() The Supreme Court is so corrupt that they think that other people can’t see their corruption. That’s because they, themselves, have changed what can be charged as a crime so that it moves further and further from the kind of transgressions they and their class are likely to do. The lawyers have warned me to say – to declaim! – that I am not calling any of the judges corrupt in the law as it is currently interpreted. It is so corrupt that it’s ruled that corruption is the way democracy is supposed to operate. The Supreme Court of the United States is so corrupt that it makes corruption legal. He can even kill your imaginary friend.Īs I began this article, I found myself writing similar one-liners: So strong he can kill two stones with one bird. When my kids were growing up, there were lots of Chuck Norris jokes.Ĭhuck Norris is so strong he makes onions cry.
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