What does Super PAC spending have to do with what the ruling was “about?”
The legal issue in Citizens United was whether the government could punish a non-profit company for making a movie about Hilary Clinton during election season. During the oral argument, the government’s lawyer admitted that the government’s view of the first amendment would authorize the government to ban books.
Look, I think the Supreme Court has gone too far with the first amendment, like holding that stripping is protected speech and communities cannot shut down strip clubs. But making movies critical of political candidates is clearly within the core of protected speech.
And you can’t get around that by focusing on the corporate issue. If corporations don’t have free speech, then when Trump gets elected again in a few months he can legally require Facebook and Google to show its viewers pro-Trump advertisements.
The only principled way to do what you want is to say that the government can impose certain speech restrictions for the good of society. That’s basically what the Europeans do. But that’s exactly the interpretation that liberals spent the entire 20th century fighting against.
What does Super PAC spending have to do with what the ruling was “about?”
The logic used and the wording of the ruling are what are important in SCOTUS decisions. The impact is what matters and the impact was a massive rise in spending by billionaires. It is a well known phenomenon that spending matters in campaigns and allowing a few people to control an outsized amount of that spending is what Citizens United paved the way for.
The legal issue in Citizens United was whether the government could punish a non-profit company for making a movie about Hilary Clinton during election season. During the oral argument, the government’s lawyer admitted that the government’s view of the first amendment would authorize the government to ban books.
Look, I think the Supreme Court has gone too far with the first amendment, like holding that stripping is protected speech and communities cannot shut down strip clubs. But making movies critical of political candidates is clearly within the core of protected speech.
And you can’t get around that by focusing on the corporate issue. If corporations don’t have free speech, then when Trump gets elected again in a few months he can legally require Facebook and Google to show its viewers pro-Trump advertisements.
The only principled way to do what you want is to say that the government can impose certain speech restrictions for the good of society. That’s basically what the Europeans do. But that’s exactly the interpretation that liberals spent the entire 20th century fighting against.