Finally, Quotes From the Decision

Sorry for the delay.  MeanMesa became entangled in extraordinary difficulties, imposed by the wrathful hand of the Supreme Court's PDF approach to presenting the decision's content on their web site.  Not to worry.  Everything got much better with a few chuckling "sweeps of the hand" by our Very Saintly, MeanMesa IT GUY, Dave.  So, here it is!

Now, typically we find the language of even the most emotional dissent to be remarkably stuffy. If the "cordiality of the Senate" is troubling, one might conclude that the same "cordiality" of the Supreme Court, expressed as the Justices disagree with each other, is utterly suffocating. However, this is not the case in the January 21 decisions. In fact, those decisions represent a startling departure, given their notable passion and clarity.

MeanMesa has discussed this ruling in a previous blog, but -- thanks to the dismal curse of our geriatric computer skills -- we were unable to cite specific examples of the outrage. Here, a day or two later, we remedy this defect. What material is noted below represents just a smattering of the decision, that is, quotations taken directly from the content of the dissent, in this case, written by Justice Stevens.

So, sample what is provided. If your interest is piqued, the following link will lead to a full reading of this disastrous ruling.

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:wQFUXRu121UJ:www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf+supreme+court+decision+jan+21&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Justice Stevens: 
Certain Quotations from The Dissent

(the emphasis in bold letters is added here...)

The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.

In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process.

Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races. The majority’s approach to corporate electioneering marks a dramatic break from our past.

Setting the case for reargument was a constructive step, but it did not cure this fundamental problem. Essentially, five Justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.

This is not merely a technical defect in the Court’s decision. The unnecessary resort to a facial inquiry “run[s] contrary to the fundamental principle of judicial restraint that courts should neither anticipate a question of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it nor formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied.” Washington State Grange, 552 U. S., at 450 (internal quotation marks omitted). Scanting that principle “threaten[s] to short circuit the democratic process by preventing laws embodying the will of the people from being implemented in a manner consistent with the Constitution.” Id., at 451. These concerns are heightened when judges overrule settled doctrine upon which the legislature has relied. The Court operates with a sledge hammer rather than a scalpel when it strikes down one of Congress’ most significant efforts to regulate the role that corporations and unions play in electoral politics. It compounds the offense by implicitly striking down a great many state laws as well.

By removing one of its central components, today’s ruling makes a hash out of BCRA’s “delicate and interconnected regulatory scheme.” McConnell, 540 U. S., at 172. Consider just one example of the distortions that will follow: Political parties are barred under BCRA from soliciting or spending “soft money,” funds that are not subject to the statute’s disclosure requirements or its source and amount limitations. 2 U. S. C. ž441i; McConnell, 540 U. S., at 122–126. Going forward, corporations and unions will be free to spend as much general treasury money as they wish on ads that support or attack specific candidates, whereas national parties will not be able to spend a dime of soft money on ads of any kind. The Court’s ruling thus dramatically enhances the role of corporations and unions—and the narrow interests they represent—vis-Ó-vis the role of political parties—and the broad coalitions they represent—in determining who will hold public office.

As we have unanimously observed, legislatures are entitled to decide “that the special characteristics of the corporate structure require particularly careful regulation” in an electoral context. NRWC, 459 U. S., at 209–210.50  Not only has the distinctive potential of corporations to corrupt the electoral process long been recognized, but within the area of campaign finance, corporate spending is also “furthest from the core of political expression, since corporations’ First Amendment speech and association interests are derived largely from those of their members and of the public in receiving information,” Beaumont, 539 U. S., at 161, n. 8 (citation omitted). Campaign finance distinctions based on corporate identity tend to be less worrisome, in other words, because the “speakers” are not natural persons, much less members of our political community, and the governmental interests are of the highest order. 
 

Furthermore, when corporations, as a class, are distinguished from noncorporations, as a class, there is a lesser risk that regulatory distinctions will reflect invidious discrimination or political favoritism. If taken seriously, our colleagues’ assumption that the identity of a speaker has no relevance to the Government’s ability to regulate political speech would lead to some remarkable conclusions. Such an assumption would have accorded the propaganda broadcasts to our troops by “Tokyo Rose” during World War II the same protection as speech by Allied commanders. More pertinently, it would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans: To do otherwise, after all, could “‘enhance the relative voice’” of some (i.e., humans) over others (i.e., nonhumans). 

Under the majority’s view, I suppose it may be a First Amendment problem that corporations are not permitted to vote, given that voting is, among other things, a form of speech. In short, the Court dramatically overstates its critique of identity-based distinctions, without ever explaining why corporate identity demands the same treatment as individual identity. Only the most wooden approach to the First Amendment could justify the unprecedented line it seeks to draw.

Let us start from the beginning. The Court invokes “ancient First Amendment principles,” ante, at 1 (internal quotation marks omitted), and original understandings, ante, at 37–38, to defend today’s ruling, yet it makes only a perfunctory attempt to ground its analysis in the principles or understandings of those who drafted and ratified the Amendment. Perhaps this is because there is not a scintilla of evidence to support the notion that anyone believed it would preclude regulatory distinctions based on the corporate form. To the extent that the Framers’ views are discernible and relevant to the disposition of this case, they would appear to cut strongly against the majority’s position.

This is not only because the Framers and their contemporaries conceived of speech more narrowly than we now think of it, see Bork, Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems, 47 Ind. L. J. 1, 22 (1971), but also because they held very different views about the nature of the First Amendment right and the role of corporations in society. Those few corporations that existed at the founding were authorized by grant of a special legislative charter. Corporate sponsors would petition the legislature, and the legislature, if amenable, would issue a charter that specified the corporation’s powers and purposes and “authoritatively fixed the scope and content of corporate organization,” including “the internal structure of the corporation.” J. Hurst, The Legitimacy of the Business Corporation in the Law of the United States 1780–1970, pp. 15–16 (1970) (reprint 2004). Corporations were created, supervised, and conceptualized as quasi-public entities, “designed to serve a social function for the state.” Handlin & Handlin, Origin of the American Business Corporation, 5 J. Econ. Hist. 1, 22 (1945). It was “assumed that [they] were legally privileged organizations that had to be closely scrutinized by the legislature because their purposes had to be made consistent with public welfare.” R. Seavoy, Origins of the American Business Corporation, 1784–1855, p. 5 (1982).

MeanMesa encourages all of our visitors to "delve a little more deeply" into this particular decision.  The grave damage it has completed against our democracy will become a permanent feature of your future lives.

Supreme Court Addresses THE WRONG PROBLEM!

Does anyone else notice a certain "light headed" sensation after the Supreme Court decision announced today? (January 21, 2009) You should. Another seriously major foundation stone of your civil liberties has been painlessly extracted by the neo-con monkeys masquerading as Supreme Court Justices.

Has good old MeanMesa careened off the road again? Hardly. During the autocracy, the W's fear campaign persuaded the Congress to dump the centuries old habeas corpus idea in favor the would-be-dictator's unending appetite for total domination of the country. In that case, since most of the hill billies and bigots who comprised his mindless base couldn't even begin to understand the change, the W was able to herd his evil scheme through -- completely under the head lamps of a discredited corporate media entirely complicit with his plan.

However, this latest outrage by the Supreme Court Neo-Cons is so stinky that not even an uninterested citizenry and an utterly corrupted media can provide much cover. Let's get to some specifics.

The Original Court Case

The whole affair emerged from a bit of a tantrum from a group named Citizens United. This unimaginative piglet was the unholy progeny of a bunch of neo-con corporatist dollars and a dismally unsuccessful clutch of "film folk," perhaps the remnants of an ersatz company of hymn writers for late night, dirty shirt preachers. Citizens United made an almost entirely fallacious film about Hillary Clinton to be broadcast during the 2008 primary campaign which, they hoped, would keep the W's half witted base on fire a little longer.

The Election Commission ruled that the film was so much an amateur political contrivance that it amounted to a campaign contribution. As such it was, they argued, subject to the campaign rule that required a disclosure of the funding sources which had sponsored the thing. Citizen United's corporate masters, already embarrassed by the incredibly meat handed "bad craftsmanship" of the piece, ordered that the names of the film's "money people" remain secret.

They claimed that it was a First Amendment, free speech matter.

Long story short, the case made the perilous journey to the neo-con Supreme Court. The specific decision being sought was whether the film was to be protected as "free speech" or if it were so outrageously corporatist  and political that it had to be considered a "campaign contribution."

As one might expect, the neo-cons on the Court expanded the question so it then came to focus on whether there was any limit whatsoever to the amount of money that corporations could spend -- not as direct gifts to a candidate's campaign -- but to create "side show" "public service" material such as the Hillary Clinton film and broadcast it, paying the costs outside the regulations of the election laws.

The Decision

Naturally, the five neo-con ideologues -- activist judges of the lowest calibre, appointed by Republicans -- voted in favor of the corporate interests. The extremely unsettling ramification of the decision was that corporations are people, enjoying the entire Bill of Rights protection to freedom of speech as defined in the First Amendment to our Constitution.

Although the traditional limit on campaign contributions ($2,300 for an individual, natural PERSON) remained in place, the decision made legal absolutely any amount of money spent on the "side show" material by anyone with the ambition to spend money in such a manner to overwhelm an otherwise democratic election. Any otherwise democratic election.

What exactly does this mean? If you, an idealistic MeanMesa visitor, canvass door to door among your neighbors to raise money for your favorite candidate, and, as a result, you are able to proudly deposit $200 in his campaign war chest for the purchase of a few television ads, it is entirely legal for the Acme Chinese Crap and Trinket Corporation to show up with a nice check for $100 million and launch its own campaign for your candidate's sleazy, neo-con competitor.

If anyone complains, the Acme Chinese Crap and Trinket Corporation can simply chuckle, saying "Because our corporation is actually a person, it enjoys the absolute protection of the First Amendment's free speech clause. We can do whatever the hell we wish. So screw off."

Further, it now -- after this decision -- no longer matters if the Acme Chinese Crap and Trinket Corporation is, quietly, a joint venture between some greasy little neo-con puppet company in Delaware and General Xang, the Peoples Liberation Army's torture, execution and penitentiary organ removal program's military supervisor -- the man who actually authorized the $100 million dollar check. General Xang intends to "take down" your candidate, and this Supreme Court thinks that's just fine.

The neo-fascists in the Supreme Court have decided, once and for all, that this is precisely what the founding fathers had in mind for our Constitution and our country. Nice, huh?

Benito Mussolini was the last famous example of such a decision that corporations were people and that they had just as much business directing the course of government that ordinary citizens, actual people, did. The idea sucked swamp water then, and this crappy decision sucks swamp water now.

However, General Xang and Mussolini aside, we can frame this threat in more readable terms. Let's say that there is a Congressional candidate who says big banks should pay back their TARP money. He has raised $200,000 for his campaign, and it looks good for him to win.

Then the Hugeolicus Bank and Risk Everything Group decides that it will finance 1,000 television ads and six full length, exciting Hollywood movies about what a jerk he is. Total cost? Say the bill runs $100 million dollars. This sounds like a lot of money, but should this candidate actually become a Congressman, his insistence on collecting the TARP account will amount to $20 BILLION dollars. Hugeolicus, very reasonably, sees the $100 million as an excellent investment.

It is yet another outrage inflicted on Americans by the W's autocracy -- especially the nasty Supreme Court Justices he slithered through the Senate. What a joke. We all thought that they had "paid back" for the favor in full when they appointed him President in 2000!

The Dissent

Rather than rehash all the comments made about the decision, MeanMesa will offer the following links to some fairly balanced, immediate responses to the ruling. The entire majority and dissenting opinions are also on the web for MeanMesa visitors who would like to take a look at them. Most rational Americans -- conservatives and liberals alike -- are so freaked out about this that they are jumping out of their boxer shorts.

An Voice of America article offered some of the text of the ruling. Here are a few samples of what both neo-con and more progressive voices had to say.

Conservative and libertarian groups welcomed the Supreme Court decision, including Steve Simpson with the Institute for Justice.  He spoke to reporters in front of the Supreme Court.

"The Supreme Court recognized today that the purpose of the First Amendment is to allow individuals and Americans to speak out as loudly and as robustly as they please," he said. "That applies whether an individual chooses to speak out alone or whether he chooses to associate with others and speak out as a group."

The court's liberal four-member minority opposed the change.  In his written dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said the ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation.

A written statement from President Obama at the White House said the high court's decision opens the way to a stampede of special interest money in American politics.

Among those speaking out in opposition was Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York.

"Today's ruling, decided by the slimmest of majorities, guts our system of free and fair elections," he said. "The bottom line is this.  The Supreme Court has just predetermined the winners of next November's elections.  It won't be Republicans.  It won't be Democrats.  It will be corporate America."

and,

Bob Edgar is president of the monitoring group Common Cause: 

"We need to recognize that money has influenced the debate here in Washington for too long," said Edgar.  "All you have to do is look at the housing crisis, the investment crisis, the banking crisis.  Even this health care debate was already tainted by how much money had flooded into the system.  The elected officials in the House and Senate are going to end up serving special interests even more than they do today and not the public's interest."

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Major-Supreme-Court-Ruling-on-Campaign-Finance-82288007.html

For additional information, MeanMesa encourages interested visitors to also review the following commentary.

From Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/21/supreme-corporate-spending-business-court.html

From the Wall Street Journal:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/01/21/grayson-on-high-court-ruling-worst-decision-since-dred-scott/

From the Christian Science Monitor:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0121/Supreme-Court-Campaign-finance-limits-violate-free-speech

For a complete text of the ruling:

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf

The Mistaken Certainty

Now, all of this might be seen as little more than a fundamental disagreement between authoritarian neo-cons and progressive liberals, but MeanMesa sees a foundational difficulty with the entire debate. Perhaps the flash and fury of the different views obscures this rather troubling foundation. It is upon this foundational question -- the reliance upon an accepted, yet unacceptable axiom -- that the discussion should be addressed.

What, exactly,  is the mistaken certainty?

It seems that all parties offering opinions about the decision have already jumped over an otherwise strikingly difficult conclusion. It is that conclusion, not the superficial arguments about the legitimacy of various ways to pursue it which reaches the status of a MeanMesa Mistaken Certainty.

All these positions are based on the idea that having enough money will win any election.

Once this idea is accepted as fact, the Supreme Court's ruling heralds a political environment where corporations, entities which, by definition, have both extravagant and available money and utterly self-serving ideas, are empowered to dependably deliver whatever candidates they wish into the government. The ugly proposition has a strong and convincing basis in fact when we look at the results of corporate money already.

The health care reform debate is an excellent example. Health insurance corporate money has hosted all those ambitious to be obstacles. The up and coming struggle for banking regulation will be the next case of corporate interests against everybody else's interests. Beyond that, legislation to limit carbon emissions will follow along the same path of combat.

However, are we -- or should we -- be willing to accept the idea that the ideas expressed by a politician during a campaign have such little value? Perhaps we should.  Perhaps we have to! In fact, campaigns present very little in the way of actual ideas, and the resulting competition of ideas between them seems to have far less to do with the outcome than what we could derive from the size of their respective campaign war chests.

If we want to know who will win, we look at how much cash he has raised. In fact, when we wish to know which is the better candidate, we measure him by how much money he has to spend of his campaign, not on the quality of ideas which direct his politics. We have begun to settle for campaigns where actual ideas are rather rare, accepting instead drifty generalities about "liberty," freedom," "security," "hope," "change" and "progress."

Good ideas should "trump" lots of money when it comes to winning a political campaign. However, this simple equation disintegrates when the voters participating in that campaign don't demand ideas or even know or realize whether any have been presented.

Then the corporate money -- which should already stink from the beginning -- becomes as good as gold.

The June 29th Coincidence

A short, wretched fiction: the tale of two neo-con radio hosts gasping in unison about the Supreme Court firefighters decision. 104

Scene 1: Kentucky. The electronic media lab which was contracted to tally the Ohio votes in the 2004 election grew still after the votes were “certified.” Once the election had been “won,” the White House blanketed the place with its usual cover. The “special magic” of the place had not been needed after Mr. Blackwell’s contract was, uh, “completed.”

However, with the GOP disaster in 2008, the place exploded into a new life and a new mission. It was now the official “Neo-Con Talking Points Factory." Our “visit” occurs on June 29, 2009, the day the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Connecticut fire fighters was announced. The shift supervisor rushes into the “war room,” grasping a crumpled email in his hands.

Supervisor: “We’ve got new marching orders from the top! We have to trash Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination! Get on it, Schmidt!”

Schmidt: “I’ve already been through about a thousand of her rulings. There’s nothing there -- there’s nothing even a little bit stinky.”

“The ‘activist judge’ thing was too complicated for our base. She’s only had rulings overturned a half a dozen times on appeal. The ‘rascist’ pitch connected with a few bigots down south, but they were already in our pocket before we started.”

“Have you got any more ideas?”

Supervisor: “Only one, Schmidt, only one. It’s a long shot, but we have to try something! We get paid to follow orders.”

“Go back through this thing again. It’s a damned perfect storm. Firefighters from Connecticut, not promoted because they were white. Our base on the street can understand something like this, sort of.”

“Roberts delivered the verdict they paid for, 5-4, but he’s already started asking how many more favors he’s got to produce to pay back for the GOP cover during his own nomination hearings. I mean, he appreciates not having to answer questions about that conflict of interest case with the insurance company, but now he’s bucking a little, you now, getting nervous, complaining.”

Schmidt: “Wait a minute. I'm getting it now! What if the Supreme Court decision was unanimous instead of 5-4? That paints a picture of Sotomayor’s ruling as radical -- outrageous, you know, out of the ball park! Something like that could get some traction in the base.”

Supervisor: “Yeah, it could, but the problem with that idea is that the ruling was 5-4, not 9 - zip. Throwing something like that might be a bigger trick than any of the stuff we usually do. Anyway, the Supreme Court ruling has already been all over the media.”

Schmidt: “That’s my point! The hill billies don’t understand anything about the Supreme Court anyway, but they love white men getting discriminated against. The ‘grudge’ crowd who think that Obama is out for their jobs and their guns will glue on to something like this like pigs at a wiener festival.”

“We could fire up a lot phone calls to the Senate against her. You and I both know that facts don’t matter with our voters. We can rewrite the whole story! Make the Supreme Court ruling 9 - 0. That would mean that even the liberals voted to over turn her ruling.”

Supervisor: “God! That’s just crazy enough to work. So few of our base know what the Court actually did, we can put this out and just look stupid to a few of the smarter ones. Call Hannity and Limbaugh! Hit 'em hard, but make it look like a coincidence.”

The June 29th Coincidence

Rush Limbaugh Radio Show, June 29, 2009.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_062909/content/01125109.guest.html
Rush Limbaugh discussing the Supreme Court decision in the firefighters case.

"RUSH: Now, the Sotomayor case. I want you to hear the State-Run Media describe the bad news. There's no question Sotomayor was overturned. Her court decided in favor of the City of New Haven and the black firefighters that didn't score as well on tests. Summary judgment without a trial, and they have been upbraided for this by not only the majority in the Supreme Court today (it was Anthony Kennedy's opinion) but also by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the dissent. And this is why brilliant legal analysts are saying this decision when you get down to it is actually 9-zip, not 5-4 when you look at some of the things that Ginsburg wrote about the mistakes and not even hearing the case, not even taking the constitutional questions. And the reason for this is... I go back to what I said at the beginning, and I stand by this."

Sean Hannity Show, June 29, 2009, courtesy of RealClearPolitics.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/29/ricci_interview_hannity_transcript_97240.html
Sean Hannity interviewing Karen Torre, attorney for firefighters.

"HANNITY: Karen, I know this is a 5-4 decision, and by any objective measure, people would say well, this is a pretty close case, but in essence, when you look at it, really, it's almost 9-0 because even those in the minority found that the Second Circuit with Judge Sotomayor had really botched this case. Is that your reading of it?"

I guess we shouldn't really be that surprised when great journalists arrive at the same conclusion at the same time on the same day a week before the confirmations hearings start in the Senate.