Supreme Court Removes Limits on Corporate, Labor Donations to Campaigns

[The Minsky Moment]

By my reading of it the First Amendment doesn't give rights from people - that would be presumptuous - it bans from Congress the ability to make laws that restrict speech.

At the same time, corporations are mere creatures of state law.  The state can grant them or withhold whatever powers it wishes.  Most states do that these days through general incorporation law, but it used to be the case that each corporation was chartered individually through an act of the legislature, which could (and sometimes did) insert whatever special clauses or limitations it wished.

So now we have the odd result that something the government could do on a corporation-by-corporation basis (insert a charter restriction to prevent the company from engaging in political advocacy) cannot be done as a general matter through general legislation.  That seems to me rather hard to explain.

[The Brain]

Media companies were exempted. 

"We're special!"

[Caliga]

Media companies were exempted.  Please review statute before commenting.

That's not how we do things around here, son.

[grumbler]

Certainly restricting advertising strongly affects a film's distribution.

Restricting the sources of the money for advertising, I believe you mean.

For actual films, of course, this isn't an issue.  For political ads masquerading as movies, it is (because the political ads don't turn profits).  I thought it was kinda funny that the USSC basically decided that the government was right on the issues in dispute, but that it was going to overturn the whole law instead of allowing the government to "benefit" from being right as a matter of law.

[ulmont]

So now we have the odd result that something the government could do on a corporation-by-corporation basis (insert a charter restriction to prevent the company from engaging in political advocacy) cannot be done as a general matter through general legislation.  That seems to me rather hard to explain.

Also, the limited liability corporation could be banned entirely or could be barred from interstate commerce.  It strikes me as odd that the federal government would have the power to eliminate the corporate form but not to limit its speech rights.

Perhaps you could work around the problem by requiring corporations to surrender rights in order to be privileged to engage in interstate commerce - ala consent to warrantless searches as a condition of supervised release.

[grumbler]

Perhaps you could work around the problem by requiring corporations to surrender rights in order to be privileged to engage in interstate commerce - ala consent to warrantless searches as a condition of supervised release.

Never thought of that, but it is an interesting compromise.

Smaller in-state corporations wouldn't be subject to the restriction, but, being smaller, would be more accountable to the ownership.

What about unions and other voluntary non-commercial organizations, though?

[ulmont]

Perhaps you could work around the problem by requiring corporations to surrender rights in order to be privileged to engage in interstate commerce - ala consent to warrantless searches as a condition of supervised release.

Never thought of that, but it is an interesting compromise.

Smaller in-state corporations wouldn't be subject to the restriction, but, being smaller, would be more accountable to the ownership.

What about unions and other voluntary non-commercial organizations, though?

I hadn't gotten that far yet.  I suspect they engage in sufficient interstate commerce to be broadly regulable in much the same way, though.

[Hansmeister]

OTOH, the New York Times is a corporation so maybe we could've banned its publication 30 days prior to an election. 

Media companies were exempted.  Please review statute before commenting.

And you missed the point completely.  If the law is constitutional then the gov't could go back at any time and unexempt the media in order to ban political speech.  Unless you can make an argument that somehow media corporations have more constitutional rights than non-media corporations, in which case the matter would then swithc to who has the authority to declare a corporation a media company vs. a non-media company.  For a lawyer you sure can be obtuse at times.

[Admiral Yi]

And you missed the point completely.  If the law is constitutional then the gov't could go back at any time and unexempt the media in order to ban political speech.  Unless you can make an argument that somehow media corporations have more constitutional rights than non-media corporations, in which case the matter would then swithc to who has the authority to declare a corporation a media company vs. a non-media company.  For a lawyer you sure can be obtuse at times.

Except that freedom of the press presupposes a communal entity, doesn't it?

[The Minsky Moment]

And you missed the point completely.  If the law is constitutional then the gov't could go back at any time and unexempt the media in order to ban political speech. 

Then you would have a new law, a new challenge, and a new analysis.

But that is all hypothetical.  The Court is supposed to decide cases based on the law that actually exist, not some hypothetical law that could exist but never will.  Unless of course the Court chooses to indulge in (*gasp*) activism.

Unless you can make an argument that somehow media corporations have more constitutional rights than non-media corporations, in which case the matter would then swithc to who has the authority to declare a corporation a media company vs. a non-media company.  For a lawyer you sure can be obtuse at times.

As a lawyer, I know the difference between a facial and as applied challenge, which is an advantage you may lack.  Thus, what seems to you to be obtuseness may in fact simply be superior techical knowledge.

[The Minsky Moment]

Except that freedom of the press presupposes a communal entity, doesn't it?

It assumes a publisher, which was probably the original understanding.  "Media corporations" are a relatively late historical development.

[grumbler]

Unless you can make an argument that somehow media corporations have more constitutional rights than non-media corporations...

  What corporations have "constitutional rights?"  And what, exactly, are "constitutional rights?"

If you are going to accuse others of being obtuse, you should avoid being obtuse yourself.

[Sheilbh]

I think I can see a point of having a ban on corporate donations etc. in a situation where the media is politically neutral at least to some degree (e.g. like having BBC in the UK, which is supposedly neutral and should present different views equally - and this balance could be upset if private corporations could buy up all their advert time for one political party or something) but in the US, I don't see the difference between Texaco buying a pro-Republican ad on Fox News or Fox News being pro-Republican on their own on Glenn Beck show. I think the opposition comes from the ideal of "simpler, better times" of supposed media objectivity.

This is true.  I mean in the aftermath of the whole Joe Wilson 'you lie' thing I saw Sean Hannity note that Democrats were raising money off of the back of it.  On his own website (front page) was a giant 'Support Joe Wilson' logo that took you through to a fundraising site. 

But I think the BBC has very strict rules on what it can and can't report on election day and in the run up to an election must (by its charter) give equal time to all major parties (depending on region).  We also don't have TV ads.  We have party election broadcasts.  Each party is given a certain number of slots based on the number of representatives they have, none of the timeslots are for the parties to choose.  We've killed the problem by legally requiring party election broadcasts to be 5 minutes long, so they kill us with boredom.  The ones that don't are insane (a particular favourite of mine was a UKIP ad that showed a giant purple octopus with the EU flag on its forehead emerging from the Thames and tearing down Big Ben).

However our newspapers are virulent during an election.  This is a particularly famous election day edition of the Sun:

So now we have the odd result that something the government could do on a corporation-by-corporation basis (insert a charter restriction to prevent the company from engaging in political advocacy) cannot be done as a general matter through general legislation.  That seems to me rather hard to explain.

True enough. 

[Hansmeister]

And you missed the point completely.  If the law is constitutional then the gov't could go back at any time and unexempt the media in order to ban political speech. 

Then you would have a new law, a new challenge, and a new analysis.

But that is all hypothetical.  The Court is supposed to decide cases based on the law that actually exist, not some hypothetical law that could exist but never will.  Unless of course the Court chooses to indulge in (*gasp*) activism.

Unless you can make an argument that somehow media corporations have more constitutional rights than non-media corporations, in which case the matter would then swithc to who has the authority to declare a corporation a media company vs. a non-media company.  For a lawyer you sure can be obtuse at times.

As a lawyer, I know the difference between a facial and as applied challenge, which is an advantage you may lack.  Thus, what seems to you to be obtuseness may in fact simply be superior techical knowledge.

Or more likely three years of law school has taught you how to ignore such simple declarative sentences such as "Congress shall make no law..." 

Next you'll argue that corporations distributing pornography is constitutionally protected free speech while corporations distributing political speech isn't.   

Sorry, that is a rather pathetic line of reasoning.

[grumbler]

Next you'll argue that corporations distributing pornography is constitutionally protected free speech while corporations distributing political speech isn't.   

Sorry, that is a rather pathetic line of reasoning.

I would have thought that you had learned from Syt's example that telling a person what they are going to say next always ends in tears.