Patriot Perspective
Montana's Campaign Speech Law Overturned
Justice Anthony Kennedy's swing vote aided constitutional conservatives as the Supreme Court summarily reversed a decision of the Montana Supreme Court, which held that the U.S. Court's Citizens United decision did not apply to Montana. Citizens United held that the government could not criminalize speech simply based on the corporate identity of the speaker: "When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful."
The Montana Supreme Court attempted to evade this First Amendment rule by asserting the state had an unusual danger of political corruption that justified speech restrictions. Although four justices would have reviewed Citizens United -- the real purpose of the case -- the majority noted that there was nothing so uniquely awful about Montana as to warrant a special exemption from the First Amendment.
Of course, corruption, or the appearance of it, is a legitimate concern. But the way to prevent it is to constrain not citizens' right to speak, but government's capacity to dole out special favors. For so long as the government can write half-billion-dollar checks to failing energy companies or rewrite contracts while restructuring automobile companies to benefit union allies, there will be the potential for corruption. When government follows neutral standards rather than retaining discretion through loophole-laden legislation, the risk of apparent corruption will no longer support an attack on First Amendment freedoms.
3 Comments
RK Sprau in L.C. N.M.
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 2:34 PM
Will someone, anyone tell me where is the state rights? Can anyone tell me how does corporations end up as free people and people have the authority to practic3 free speech by spending money therefore by the .C. logic money and unlimited amounts of it is free speech? Where did the state rights go?
Al in California
Wednesday, July 4, 2012 at 5:32 PM
In 1968 a directive went out to the REPUBLICS from the Federal Government to bring their state CONSTITUTIONS in line with the CORPORATE form of GOVERNMENT.
They were to have it completed by the year 1972. There are 28 Republics that have returned to the De Jure (LEGAL) governments. They will not tell the people about this directive from the Federal Government, and they will not tell the people their state is being operated under an Illegal corporate government. .
In a search window one can key in De Jure form of government & then key in Corporate form of government.
They mandated de jure segregation in all public facilities, with a "separate but equal" status for black Americans and members of other non-white racial groups. The long walk from slave market to the White House by New African
The second irony is one that also haunts the work of Glenn and Hirsch: the great victory of 1960s civil rights legislation in destroying de jure segregation in the public schools has not been followed, as was expected, by a diminution in de facto racial segregation and by an overall improvement in American educational outcomes.
A real education reformer by Aeschliman, M. D. / Modern Age De jure segregation was not present in these cases since Seattle never had segregated its schools, and Louisville, under court order, already had eliminated any vestiges of state sanctioned segregation. The Supreme Court "races" on by Bresler, Robert J. / USA Today (Magazine)
1. de facto segregation - segregation (especially in schools) that happens in fact although not required by law separatism, segregation - a social system that provides separate facilities for minority groups.
1 : by right : of right 2 : based on laws or actions of the state
De facto government; One that maintains itself by a display of force against the will of the rightful legal government and is successful, at least temporarily, in overturning the institutions of the rightful government by setting up its own in lieu thereof Wortham v. Walker, 133 Tex 255, 128 S. W. 2d b1138, 1165 Black's Law Dictionary 6th Ed. pg. 416
OKBecky in Tulsa, OK
Monday, July 2, 2012 at 7:31 PM
Citizens have a right to organize into "A company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law" (dictionary definition of a corporation). People organize as corporations so they can more easily pool their resources to advance certain causes, and sometimes that cause is a political cause. (Of course, as feminists began saying in 1969, "the personal is political," meaning there is no such thing as non-political activity.) It has always cost money to publish. Why do you think we have so few records from the Middle Ages? Books were terribly expensive! Movable type made printing books, pamphlets, and finally newspapers much less expensive, but it's still expensive to set up and maintain a printing press, or to invest in television or radio broadcast equipment, or to invest in computer and internet technology to spread your message. It costs money to pay the people who produce printed materials like billboards and flyers, and it costs money to pay everyone who works in a production studio (to make commercials) or those who have TV or radio programs and their staffs and the building and maintenance crews. Passing laws to limit the money that can go into political speech does not result in "freer" speech; the right to say whatever you want does not mean that you have a right to the use of someone else's productive goods and capacities, without proper compensation.