Supreme Court Ruling Opens Floodgates

[Lake View Too]

Five Faces

I'd really like to place solidly in my memory the faces and names of the five supreme court justices who sold this country to the corporations...most commentators seem to think this will be looked back as a turning point in the political history of this nation, and there's no way it can be seen in any positive light... a very sad state of affairs, if you ask me.

 

[scooterbug44]

GIANT step backwards in any attempt at campaign finance reform or reducing the role of lobbyists and special interests from what I am hearing. :angry:

 

[30ashopper]

The Constitution doesn't protect against bad politics, it just protects our rights. Generally, I think it's misguided to blame the Supreme Court - quite the contrary in fact - they made a very hard but good decision.

 

[Lynnie]

Do we have a breakdown of the SC votes, yet?

 

[Matt J]

The Constitution doesn't protect against bad politics, it just protects our rights. Generally, I think it's misguided to blame the Supreme Court - quite the contrary in fact - they made a very hard but good decision.

Could you please point to the section of the Constitution that gives corporations the same rights as all us mere mortals?

 

[30ashopper]

Could you please point to the section of the Constitution that gives corporations the same rights as all us mere mortals?

sure -

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Obviously the legality goes very deep, there's the founders intent, past rulings and precedent.. but generally I think it's pretty obvious "Congress shall make no law.. abridging the freedom of speech" does not specifically identify any individual or group, its intent is to limit government generally, in all cases. I don't think this is about the rights of people vs. rights for companies, it's about limiting government.

The [First] Amendment is written in terms of "speech," not speakers. Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker, from single individuals to partnerships of individuals, to unincorporated associations of individuals, to incorporated associations of individuals--and the dissent offers no evidence about the original meaning of the text to support any such exclusion. We are therefore simply left with the question whether the speech at issue in this case is "speech" covered by the First Amendment. No one says otherwise.

-- Scalia

I'm not saying the results from this will have a positive impact on campaigns, I'm just saying the ruling upheld the Constitution, and that I think this is a good thing.

 

[Minnie]

Do we have a breakdown of the SC votes, yet?

On its central point, Justice Kennedy?s majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Thomas and Antonin Scalia.

Justice Stevens?s dissent was joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

 

[30ashopper]

On its central point, Justice Kennedy?s majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Thomas and Antonin Scalia.

Justice Stevens?s dissent was joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

The originalists vs. the activists. Not surprising. (Nice to see you didn't stop posting Minnie!)

 

[30ashopper]

I was thinking about this some more. The differences of opinion on this ruling do a great job of showing the difference between the activists and the other side of the court. For example, Justice Ginsberg believes the Constitution is a 'living document.' Because of this, she feels she has the right to edit the meaning of the Constitution based on prevailing ideology. In this case, she felt the "freedom of speech" clause should be restricted to individuals only. In effect, she wished to change the following lines from -

"Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech."

to

"Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech of an individual person."

Isn't it obvious how this changes the meaning of the phrase? Isn't it obvious how this change gives government more power to control? We The People never voted on this change however, nobody ever asked us our opinion. Ginsberg just decided, "hey, I don't like what these companies will do so I'll just go ahead and amend this to change it." Which is why I think this is such a good ruling. Ginsberg and her fellow activists' views on the power Supreme Court judges should have got shot down the other day. Amen for that! Even if it means we have to put up with more campaign ads as a result.

 

[Matt J]

30ashopper,

This does not uphold the constitution as it actually basically strips the average American of even more rights. Corporations will control campaigns thus violating a basic right of one person one vote. You can hide behind your spin words of "activists vs. originalists" and any number of other things brought to you by, guess what, corporations.

You can spout off about the first amendment all day long, but I'll stick my original point. You still have not shown me where in the constitution it includes corporations. Before restating that it doesn't mention people specifically I'll refer you to the Preamble of the constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I went ahead and underlined the key points there. At no point does it mention corporations. This ruling was wholly unconstitutional in the fact that the conservative side of the court (notice I refrained from name calling, insults, or references to Fox News) just undermined the average voter. This allows corporations to determine who will win in elections by backing them with buckets of cash.

You can argue that this doesn't affect voting, but studies and common sense show that people can be swayed by the campaign with the bigger budget. Go ahead, change the subject and start Obama bashing.