Lessig on Supreme Court Campaign Finance Decision: Change Congress Video
action.change-congress.org The Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC gives corporations free rein to pour unprecedented amounts of money into elections. From this day forward, when Congress acts, who can say it wasn't because of the money? Watch Lawrence Lessig's response to Citizens United, share his call to action with friends, and sign up for updates.
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Posted in Videos
Here is a great clip of campaign finance laws at work: /watch?v=XZXlPdF5xkE
@Edgehead10075 – Exactly, only this is definitely a liberal conservative ruling. Both sides do it, trampling one, if that is what it can be legitimately considered to begin with, to elevate another. The sad part is this will work to trample majority rule, the most fundamental concept, from the onset, to American Democracy. Separation of Powers, etc. everything being usurped and the majority rule of the “people” being relegated to some minority status featuring meaningless voting rights.
How about one person, one vote. Now that corporations are people that is not true.
Corporations are composed of many workers, who can vote differently from the corporation. They are being disenfranchised, and not given an extra vote, whereas the corporate CEO, and Board members are being given more than one vote. They can vote as individuals (like the Constitution intended), and can vote again as corporations.
When they bought the gang of 5 they should have purchased a better quality product.
Corprations should have the same right as any other citizen and be restricted to the maximum donation as a citizen. Obama campaign has already proven of taking funds from foreign interests and so was McCain. Everyone need to be the same no special advantage because of funds available.
The Roberts Court & the ‘gang of 5′ are the ones out-of-step.
They overturned previous decisions of the Supreme Court: 1990 Austin v. Michigan chamber of Commerce, which restricted corporate spending,
& 2003 McConnell v. Federal Election Commission which up held the 2002 Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold),
2007 decision on McCain-Feingold.
Previous Supreme Court decisions made it clear that corporations need to be limited in what activities they can indulge in during federal elections.
“Of the people, by the corporations, and for the corporations.”
The new Supreme Court decision will allow a corporation to run false attack ads against anyone they wish. That means they can now EXTORT every politician in the U.S. to do whatever they want for profit.
If you think you’re getting screwed by health insurance companies, Wall Street, and credit card companies now — just wait. All consumer protection will be the first to go.
We haven’t seen anything yet.
Because the N.Y. Times or conservative newspapers run an editorial is irrelevant. They DON’T run ATTACK ADS on TV.
Any corporation can now tell legislators they’ll be the target of relentless attack ads if they vote AGAINST corporate wishes
Credit card & insurance companies, banks & Wall Street can now dictate to legislators & EXTORT any politician in America. If they object, they’re on the HIT LIST. They dont even need to do it, just threaten.
Corporatocracy USA!!!
It’s scary!
KRK Palin hates you and everything you stand for!
Mr. Lessig if you really “skimmed” through the weighty document like you claim, you’ll see that what you’re talking about is retarded. I swear sometimes I think people just believe what Keith Olbermann says on television.
OK … I did some more research for you. Here’s a link to the Bellotti case:
caselaw. lp.findlaw. com/scripts/getcase. pl? court=US&vol=435&invol=765
As Stevens pointed out, Kennedy was wrong to use Bellotti to support his case, because Footnote 26 reveals that the opinion was limited in scope to referendums, not candidate elections.
Also … a nice quote from the dissent of Justice White:
“The State need not permit its own creation to consume it.”
“Just because the framers couldn’t envision our modern world …”
Huh? The corporate form is NOT a modern concept.
I agree that a Constitutional Amendment would clear up everything, if we just declared that corporations do NOT have the same rights as individuals — because they are NOT created by God with inalienable rights; they are essentially a creation of the government itself. (Ironic, huh?)
“Stevens … does not successfully illustrate … the Constitutional authority for governing [corporate speech].”
Yes, he does. I don’t have time to cut and paste more excerpts right now, but you’ll find more answers if you consider his numerous references to the Austin and Bellotti cases.
As Stevens noted, the opinions by Kennedy and Scalia are regurgitated from their dissents in the Austin case, and they’re way out of bounds, relative to over 50 years of case law.
While Stevens has some good points here, he does not succesfully illustrate where the Constitutional authority for governing how, when and in what way a corporation or union can spend their money, or show their video, or publish their book. Just because the framers couldn’t envision our modern world does not give government unlimited authority over it. If government needs new authority you have to amend the Constitution to grant it.
(continued)
“The Framers thus took it as a given that corporations could be comprehensively regulated in the service of the PUBLIC WELFARE. Unlike our colleagues, they had little trouble distinguishing corporations from human beings, and when they constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment , it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind.”
(continued)
“To the extent that the Framers views are discernible and relevant to the disposition of this case, they would appear to cut strongly against the majoritys position.
This is not only because the Framers and their contemporaries conceived of speech more narrowly than we now think of it … but also because they held very different views about the nature of the First Amendment right and the role of corporations in society.”
BTW … thanks for the Schenck recommendation.
@travisalger
“I am trying to see where [Stevens] argues the Constitutionality of the matter.”
Check out Section 3, Part 1 — Original Understandings
For example: “[T]here is not a scintilla of evidence to support the notion that anyone [in 1791] believed [the First Amendment] would preclude regulatory distinctions based on the CORPORATE form.” (emphasis added)
@substanti8 .. cont.
Thankfully such gross logic was finally overturned FIFTY years later in Brandenburg v. Ohio, were some common sense prevailed that restricted the encroachment on free speech to situations were the a persons speech only purpose could be to incite imminent lawless action .. such as falsely yelling Fire!
@substanti8
I like the not yelling Fire! analogy though. Good point Very tricky to distinguish. The court used that argument back in 1919 (Schenck v. United States) in order to uphold a ban on the distribution of material opposed to the draft during World War I. The court at that time unanimously argued that speech that serves no purpose and is dangerous such as falsely yelling Fire! or opposing the governments war efforts (as if they were the same) can and should be banned.
@substanti8
I am trying to see where he argues the Constitutionality of the matter. I just don’t see it. It is a lot of “we can’t overturn precedent” talk.
@travisalger
Like I already stated, you should read the dissent by Justice Stevens. He answers your questions. In particular, see Section 4:
law. cornell. edu/supct/html/08-205.ZX.html
Despite what you appear to think, the right to free speech is not absolute. (Not yelling “Fire!” in a theater is a classic example.) Stevens describes, in detail, the public interest in anticorruption, antidistortion, and shareholder protection.
How so? The SCOTUS has one job; to determine the constitutionality of the issue before them. The question was “Does the Constitution give Congress (or by extension the FEC) the power to ban a movie or, for that matter, any other form of political speech?”
The answer: NO, it does not.
.. no amount of fear filled rhetoric or screams about the sky falling changes the fact that our Constitution does not authorize such bans.
… all broadcasters to provide FREE political advertising to candidates who meet qualifications set by the FCC.
The root of this problem is the failure to regulate the communications industry for the public interest.
Attempts have been made in Congress to pass legislation that would mandate free political advertising, or at least take steps toward that goal. For example, in 2003, there was Senate Bill 1497 — the “Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Act”:
campaignlegalcenter. org/FCC-198.html
… is leased for a song to giant media corporations — who use it for private profit.
It is downright bizarre that broadcaster middlemen hold our democracy hostage for the benefit of their stockholders. When the price of a soapbox requires a bank loan, only the rich get to speak.
The plague on democracy will not abate as long as we argue about regulating the SUPPLY of campaign money, rather than the DEMAND for it. The demand would be severely reduced if the FCC were to require …
Money is a surrogate for political speech because the medium for that speech is primarily costly television advertising. Candidates quickly learn that in an individualistic society like ours, the only way to speak to a sufficient number of voters is to spend millions of dollars on broadcast advertising.
Congress and the FCC have failed — horribly failed — to ensure that the publicly owned electromagnetic broadcast spectrum is used for the public interest. Instead, this public resource …
@americanjedi77
Public funding is a supply-side solution to the problem of money in politics. Like most supply-side solutions, it would ultimately fail — because it would be continually dogged by the issue of free speech.