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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jan 22, 2010 - 05:25pm PT
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I've tried to clear up what "judicial activism" and "judicial restraint" mean in other posts. Haven't had much luck yet--anyone who is interested should read the Wikipedia article for a good overview.
Stare decisis is another aspect of judicial activism and the relevant one in this case. Again, it's the hypocrisy of always wanting in both ways that is the general problem for the right and particularly of today's SCOTUS majority.
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Matthew Moore
Trad climber
davis, ca.
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Jan 22, 2010 - 05:26pm PT
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Carlyle Group celebration tonight!
You ain't invited.
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gonzo chemist
climber
the Twilight Zone of someone else's intentions
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Jan 22, 2010 - 05:27pm PT
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We should grant corporations the right to donate money to candidates when corporations have the ability to vote. I'm serious. A corporation must be able to walk over to the polling station, and cast a ballot. I'm not talking about the CEO, or CSO, or president of the company or any of the workers donating money. I mean THE CORPORATION. The legal piece of paper that denotes the existence of this corporate entity has to be able to cast a ballot....
you might say,"that's nonsense, you're speaking gibberish." And I say, it makes total sense. People can can vote. People can physically vote. When a corporation can physically vote, then I'll recognize its new-found "right" to donate money to candidates.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jan 22, 2010 - 05:29pm PT
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"If people can spend whatever they want to promote their views, then why do we bother registering voters?"
Answer: because voters decide elections. Plenty of condidates who outspend their opponents lose. We made this decision when we enacted the First Amendment. If you don't like it, amend the amendment and take away that right.
I agree with you, Joe, that stare decisis has been used hypocritically, and more by the right than by the left. Still, the Supremes are not bound to accept their own bad precedent. Otherwise, Brown v. Board of Education would have fallen to Plessy v. Ferguson.
John
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Jan 22, 2010 - 05:39pm PT
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Gonzo Chemist writes:
"We should grant corporations the right to donate money to candidates when corporations have the ability to vote."
As long as corporations are taxed and regulated by the Government, they deserve the same right to promote or oppose a candidate as anyone else.
Take away the Government's power to decide who prospers and who doesn't, and the bribe money will dry up.
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bhilden
Trad climber
Mountain View, CA
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Jan 22, 2010 - 05:48pm PT
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It is a bit simplistic to say that the 'voters elect their representatives'. It is clear that in this day and age, candidates need lots of money to get elected. It is like the nuclear proliferation during the cold war. Everybody escalates their campaign war chest because they believe that is exactly what their opponents are doing.
If we let corporations, for any reason, donate large, potenitally game changing, sums of money to the candidates, then it is extremely naive to believe that this won't have an affect on how an elected official behaves when he/she is in office. Just look at what happened with the TARP bailout. Chris Dodd admitted what he did to save the big bonuses and he received the most campaign money from AIG.
I don't understand how this has anything to do with the first amendment. If a company wants to put out it's views then find a media outlet or create your own campaign to get your views to the public. How does buying a politician's vote fall under the first amendment?
Bruce
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Greg Barnes
climber
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Jan 22, 2010 - 06:00pm PT
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My biggest concern here, is the equating of a corp to a person, in terms of constitutional rights.
But on the other hand...if we let "corporation = individual" get even more established in the law -
Then it will be fun to watch them freak when we start getting into criminal matters. Let's say death penalty for instance - does a corporate death penalty mean simply wiping out the company by seizing all assets and all assets of its officers and top employees? Or would it mean also putting the CEO and officers proven to be behind the offense to death as well?
There's an awful lot of provable corporate crimes that would get an individual felony convictions of years at least...and if a simple equation of a corporation to an individual is made, then we could see CEOs, top officers, and whole boards of directors in prison for years.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 22, 2010 - 06:10pm PT
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A good example of judicial activism is Roe v. Wade, which has no clear textual support in the Constitution. When the judges "found" a right to an abortion, they were not interpreting and applying the Constitution, they were doing "something else."
Absolutely not true. A ridiculous assertion. The Constitution does not explicitly say that a person has a right to an "abortion". However, the absence of that word does not mean that the government has a right to ban them. Given that logic, the government could tap your phones since the Constitution doesn't specifically prohibit that either. As a result, the court was required to read within the four corners of the document to determine that issue.
That particular problem arises from time to time thanks to Framer's original intent. In the Federalist Papers (it's no. 43 or something like that) James Madison specifically stated that they did not want the Constitution to provide a specific litany of rights out of the concern that if it wasn't included in that specific list that they never intended that to be an enforceable right.
Roe v. Wade was decided along the following lines: it's pretty well established that given the invididual rights granted in the Bill of Rights, the status quo of the government is non-intervention. We have a right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, to abridge our free exercise of religion and right to free speech. Given all those, the Court rightfully concluded that individuals have a general right to privacy that can't be constrained by the government absent a compelling public interest such as the viability of a fetus, hence the limits on late term abortions.
Anyone who's gone to law school can provide the rundown on Roe, since it's such a landmark, one of a kind case. For that reason, when Justice Alito was asked about Roe during his confirmation hearings and he claimed he couldn't really remember the specifics of the case, he was clearly lying. Any federal jurist is going to have a pretty good working knowledge of the case.
Re stare decisis, the court should be bound by precedent when it's well grounded. Plessy v. Ferguson was bad law because it was predicated in large part on the public policy argument that separate truly meant equal, which we all know if anything but true.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Jan 22, 2010 - 06:12pm PT
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Free speech needs some limits.
You shouldn't be able to yell bomb! in an airplane.
And you shouldn't give special interest unlimited ability to influence elections.
Free speech is a strawman, the righties love this ruling because it means more corporate $ for republicans so they get elected. Unfortuneatly the republicans get elected and give favors to the rich at the expense of all of us, but they are too deluded to see that.
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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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Jan 22, 2010 - 06:13pm PT
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Dingus said: we must divorce money from speech and that has to occur via constitutional amendment. Its the only way to kick the money changers out of the temple.
I've thought this for years. Now all the more so.
GO
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gonzo chemist
climber
the Twilight Zone of someone else's intentions
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Jan 22, 2010 - 06:25pm PT
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I should have thought more before posting.
Chaz, the point I was trying to make is that a corporation is nothing more than a concept. But one that has been granted some legal recognition of existence as some sort of money-amassing entity. What I meant to say was that when the concept of a corporation can vote, then we can grant it the right to donate money. Now, since 'concepts' can't vote, and neither can inanimate objects, then corporations shouldn't be granted the right to donate sums of money toward political campaigns. I guess I'm in a really philosophical mood at this moment. I see a 'corporation' and a 'group of people' as two different things. People can vote, corporations can't. Corporations are not material, sentient beings. Since immaterial, non-sentient things are not affected by the actions of politicians, then they shouldn't be involved in financing and voting for political persons.
hmmm, I may delete my posts in a few minutes. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to adequately convey my feelings on the matter...
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jan 22, 2010 - 06:35pm PT
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Before the 1860's we had special classes of people that were excluded from the political process.
But then, the Dem's supported that too.
The first amendment either applies universally or not at all.
Now I'm all for full disclosure. All contributions should be posted on line within 24 hours. There was a Republican sponsored bill awhile back that did just that.
Pelosi killed it.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Jan 22, 2010 - 06:35pm PT
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This has absolutely nothing to do with free speech, what a smokescreen, this all about cooersion and a corrupt body using it to make money.
"The hysteria of the Left over this decision merely shows their true nature. They have no commitment to free speech, nor to the free exchange of ideas."
Now really John, can you with a straight face, say that even you, buy that nonsense?
Good rhetoric, no content.
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Matthew Moore
Trad climber
davis, ca.
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Jan 22, 2010 - 06:52pm PT
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,89506,00.html
June 16, 2003
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the government can ban campaign contributions from advocacy groups, a warm-up decision to the showdown over the broader new campaign finance law.
Justices rejected a constitutional challenge to the 32-year-old federal donation ban, which applies to groups with a point of view on issues such as gun rights and abortion.
The case, involving a North Carolina anti-abortion organization, was a prelude to the court's handling of the 2002 campaign finance law.
By a vote of 7-2, the court said the right to free speech does not trump Congress' goal of limiting the corrosive effects of corporate money in politics.
Advocacy organizations maintain that their members should be allowed to pool their money and use it to elect candidates who support their issues.
The government maintained that the groups could be used to circumvent individual campaign donation limits, with little public disclosure about the source of the money........
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,89506,00.html
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scarcollector
climber
CO
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Jan 22, 2010 - 06:58pm PT
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"Free speech" my ass.
Is it a protected right of free speech to offer a cop money when he just happens to be in the process of writing you a ticket?
It doesn't have anything to do with speech at all - the proper term is "bribe."
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apogee
climber
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Jan 22, 2010 - 06:59pm PT
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"Opponents of the decision believe that restricting political speech paid for by corporations does not abridge free speech. Supporters of the decision believe those restrictions strike at the heart of free speech."
John, I'll defer to your legal knowledge of corporate law and whether a corporation is considered to hold the same rights as an individual.
You must admit, though, that in effect, corporations or labor unions with exceptional funding sources, have an unbalanced effect on the information flow that is available to the citizenry in making voting decisions. Entities in our capitalist system as it currently stands have extraordinary ability to skew the message on an issue or an election, and to squash lesser-funded, yet no less critical, voices in the election process.
Somewhere, there must be a practical compromise between the idealism you espouse in the concept of constitutional free speech and the contrasting belief that elections should have controls placed on messaging. It is 2010....not 1776. For all of the foresight that the Founding Fathers had, they could never have envisioned the kinds of challenges that exist to the democratic system of today.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Jan 22, 2010 - 07:24pm PT
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After reading (all) the comments on this thread, I have come to the conclusion that America is better off without extremists and fanatics, especially of the right-boot kind. Do you idiots really know what freedom of speech is about? I didn't think so. As usual, those of the right-twit mindset are railing against the lefties. What else is new. Yawnnnnnnnnnnn.
Who's climbing today? The weather forecast for Dublin looks like I may actually get on the rock tomorrow.
As for the idiots, you know who you are, deep down.
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franky
climber
Davis, CA
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Jan 22, 2010 - 07:55pm PT
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Regardless of whether or not it is a free speech issue, (I think it is) there is no question that it needs to be restricted. It would be hard to argue that there is nothing troubling with allowing corporations to behave this way.
Ideally, people wouldn't be influenced by campaign spending. Ideally, people wouldn't need money as a motivator to do work. Unfortunately, people don't behave ideally.
So JE, do you think that we should just allow people and organizations to spend all they want on elections since it is their free speech right?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jan 22, 2010 - 08:00pm PT
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JElezarian makes the most most sense so far. I even listened to Randi Rhodes today on lib radio disagree with a constitutional lawyer about it.
My take is that it's about limiting/restricting speech by certain groups around election time. Doesn't that seem wrong?
It's not really about corporations=individuals. It's about the gov't creating ANY LAW that limits political speech from ANY GROUP.
I think they still need to say who is paying for the speech. If Exxon runs an ad, the need to say who paid for it.
As it was, 527 groups could essentially do the same thing, but the donors could hide their identities. Think George Soros and MoveOn PAC, MediaMatters, and other Political Action Commitees.
As I understand it, now you know who paid for the ad/political statement.
I could be wrong, but that's the way I understand it.
I agree there's too many elections based on who can spend more money, but that's a slightly different issue. I agree that campaign finance reform needs tweaking. But that's different than private entities running ads...somewhat.
It IS messy.
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franky
climber
Davis, CA
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Jan 22, 2010 - 08:03pm PT
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I think restricting corporations from spending money on elections directly is a restriction on freedom of speech.
I also think that given that money spent on elections so drastically effects their outcome, the problem can't be ignored.
Just seeing if we can agree that there is a problem created by this ruling, and wondering what the solution is.
I get the feeling that the solution proposed by JE is "do nothing" and let the god blessed USA prevail anyway.
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