Ilya Somin explains why corporations have to effectively have free-speech rights, too:
The first problem is that, like the “real people” argument, it applies to media corporations as well. On this view, the government would be free to censor the New York Times, Fox News, The Nation, National Review, and so on. Nearly every newspaper and political journal in the country is a corporation. If the Supreme Court accepted this view, it would have to overturn decisions like New York Times v. Sullivan and the Pentagon Papers case.
He gives other reasons, but that one by itself should be good enough. One can see why the Times thinks that it should somehow be privileged above other corporations, though.
It was pointed out somewhere (OK, OK, if I was one of those blogging law professors, I would enter notes of my blog reading into RefWorks and offer citations for my blog-thread postings) that the First Amendment does not specifically grant rights to individuals, corporations, or whoever or whatever, but it specifically denies rights to Congress, one of these “Make no law” situations.
But I am not a lawyer or a law professor, so I guess I can express opinions on the way things ought to be rather than argue the technicality of the law (When the facts are on your side, pound on the facts, when the law is on your side, pound on the law, otherwise, pound on the table, but a lot that goes on here is table pounding).
The way I see it, freedom of speech applies to individual persons, and corporations or other abstract entities do not have the rights of individuals. On the other hand, a corporation or a union or whatever means of association can be tools, that is necessary means by which one or more persons can exercise their rights to free speech and redress of grievance.
The liberal justices brought up this question of “corruption of the political process”, that corporate (or union for all that matters) money in campaigns buys outcomes (votes on legislation). I don’t see that as a problem provided there is transparency.
What I see as a problem is the “not in my name” effect. Suppose my workplace gets unionized. Then I have to pay union dues, and that union in turn expresses political opinions opposite to my personal beliefs?
Before the “usual suspects” jump on me, the same is true for corporations. If I purchase a Ford automobile, am I not then supporting whatever causes Billy Ford then believes in along with the Detroit Lions footbal team when I am a Packer fan?
But forgotten in all of this is the who and why of the Citizens United court case. My understanding is that Citizens United is a bunch of “wingnuts” who got together and produced “Hillary, the Movie”, a “hit piece” that made the point the Hillary Clinton is a harridan. They needed sponsorship, and some corporate “angel” gave them the money to make and show their movie. That same point, apparently, was made after the election in that “Game Change” book written by some putatively respectable media person.
Yeah, yeah, the Citizens United folks are all wingnuts, “Hillary, the Movie” is blatant propaganda (haven’t seen it, but in my imaginings it is all funny as get-go), and Bill Moyers was all cute and pouty when he talked about the Citizens United case and then “blowed up real good” on his PBS program. And yeah, yeah, the movie is “tainted” because it was supported by a corporate sponsor.
From the standpoint of “original intent”, I am thinking Burr and Hamilton, Jefferson, and Adams, and all of the nasty personal attacks (the ones in print, not involving dueling pistols) to take public figures down a peg back in the day. That “Hillary, the Movie” be made and shown is something the Founding Fathers would have wanted. Or to put a finer point on it, that some law served to stop “Hillary, the Movie” would have been abhorent to the Founding Fathers. “Hillary, the Movie” is the kind of rough-and-tumble political discourse they had in mind, especially since it expressed opinions on the personality and personal qualities of someone seeking to be a national leader.
I think Freedom of the press is also a valid point.
Does press refer to a print press, ie anyone can print what they want, or does it refer to a classs of entity IE CBS, fox news etc…
I think the original intent was the physical printing press and by extension the dissemination of information. It would be hard to argue that a film is not proteccted by freedom of the press.
Citizens united should be able to make and show their film.
The really odd part is how blind you have to be to miss the other side of the coin. It’s like they can’t read the opposition view without blanking it all out as a defense mechanism. “Result = bad for me politically -> I don’t care about the reasoning in the slightest! Evil!”
Should Amnesty International be allowed to buy ad time within thirty days of an election to protest inhumane treatment? Absolutely.
Should the United Mine Workers Association be allowed to slam someone as insufficiently sensitive to the dangers of their profession? Absolutely.
So…
Ignore the megacorps for a second.
Should Joe’s Corner Store be allowed to slam someone who is planning on seizing his store via eminent demesne? Should Sally’s Hair Salon be allowed to argue about legislation impacting her? Those are more often LLCs than “full” corporations, but the only true difference is scale.
And if we’re arguing scale and influence alone, then the only distinction plausible is the distinction between “media corporations” and “non-media corporations.”
But… “Freedom of the Press” is in the same freaking sentence! “or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”.
If “Speech” only applies to individual citizens, why on Earth would one expect “Press” to apply to anything different? This was written in the era of tiny broadsheets – “Common Sense” etc.
Even Glenn Greenwald over at salon.com said that the ruling was more-or-less OK, and made a lot of the same points that Ilya did. Good for SCOTUS!
Here’s relevant and coherent YouTube overview from CATO: CATO on CU v FEC
I was very happy to learn of this SCOTUS ruling. The most significant benefit of this ruling is that it represents the first step in ending FDA tyranny.
I talked to a [liberal] friend about this yesterday. He was hopping mad over it.
I’m no lawyer, banker or stock broker, but I do know that most large corporations are owned by regular people. And if the U.A.W [i.e., the people who join / own / run the union] has the right to talk down Joe Candidate because he’s not crazy about U.A.W’s bargaining tactics with GM, then the corporation [i.e. the people who own the stock and control GM] should be able to say they dislike Joe Candidate right up until the polls close.
Corporations, just like unions, are just groups banded together in a common cause. Just because that cause is attempting to make money, doesn’t mean they should be silenced.