(Citizen United v. FEC., 2010)
[Campaign finance laws have restricted the political activities of groups, including corporations and union]
1.Summarize the ways in which various campaign finance laws have restricted the political activities of groups, including corporations and union.
Answer: Citizens United is an organization dedicated to restoring our government to citizens’ control. Through a combination of education, advocacy, and grass roots organization, Citizens United seeks to reassert the traditional American values of limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families, and national sovereignty and security. Citizens United’s goal is to restore the founding fathers’ vision of a free nation, guided by the honesty, common sense, and goodwill of its citizens…Citizens United has a variety of different projects that help it uniquely and successfully fulfill its mission. Citizens United is well known for producing high-impact, sometimes controversial, but always fact-based documentaries filled with interviews of experts and leaders in their fields.
2.What was the main idea of the ruling in Buckley v. Valero?
Answer: Advocacy of the election or defeat of candidates for federal office is no less entitled to protection under the First Amendment than the discussion of political policy generally or advocacy of the passage or defeat of legislation…Discussion of public issues and debate on the qualifications of candidates are integral to the operation of the system of government established by our Constitution. The First Amendment affords the broadest possible protection to such political expression in order to assure unfettered exchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people…A restriction on the amount of money
a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached. This is because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today’s mass society requires the expenditure of money.
Answer: Speech about candidates deserves the same First Amendment protection as other kinds of political speech. Civil discourse on politics is essential for self government. Engaging in speech requires spending money. Therefore, limits on spending by individuals and groups unconstitutionally burden their ability to speak freely. The First Amendment protects the ability to speak for or against a candidate, and was meant to ensure such speech could occur in a variety of ways.
3.What political activity did the group Citizens United engage in during the 2008 primary election? How was this activity potentially illegal under the BCRA?
Answer:Congress’s legitimate interest in preventing the money that is spent on elections from exerting an ‘undue influence on an officeholder’s judgment’ and from creating ‘the appearance of such influence.’ Corruption operates along a spectrum, and the majority’s apparent belief that quid pro quo arrangements can be neatly demarcated from other improper influences does not accord with the theory or reality of politics….A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.
A regulation such as BCRA may affect the way in which individuals disseminate certain messages through the corporate form, but it does not prevent anyone from speaking in his or her own voice.
4.How did the Supreme Court rule in Citizens United v. F.E.C.? In what way is it connected to the ruling in Buckley?
Answer: Because corporations can still fund electioneering communications with PAC money, it is ‘simply wrong’ to view the [BCRA] provision as a ‘complete ban’ on expression…
The dissent argues that the right to free speech was designed to protect an individual’s right to speak, and was never understood to apply to corporations, which are business associations, not political ones. The notion of “corporate speech” was foreign to the Founders, and
the First Amendment doesn’t protect it at the same level. Congress has a legitimate interest in protecting against “undue influence”and corruption, and the vast resources of corporations — in comparison to individuals — makes this “undue influence” more likely. The BCRA’s ban may regulate how a person, or persons, may speak, but it does not prevent anyone from speaking “in his own voice.
5.Do you believe that the First Amendment should protect collective speech (i.e. groups, including “special interests”) to the same extent it protects individual speech? Why or why not?
Answer: If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from filing or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech. All speakers, including individuals and the media, use money amassed from the economic marketplace to fund their speech. The First Amendment protects the resulting speech.
Answer:At the founding, speech was open, comprehensive, and vital to society’s definition of itself; there were no limits on the sources of speech and knowledge….By suppressing the speech of manifold corporations, both for-profit and nonprofit, the Government prevents their voices and viewpoints from reaching the public and advising voters on which persons or entities are hostile to their interests. Factions will necessarily form in our Republic, but the remedy of ‘destroying the liberty’ of some factions is ‘worse than the disease’ [Federalist 10]. Factions should be checked by permitting them all to speak, and by entrusting the people to judge what is true and what is false…
6.What if the government set strict limits on people spending money to get the assistance of counsel, or to educate their children, or to have abortions? Or what if the government banned candidates from traveling in order to give speeches? Would these hypothetical laws be unconstitutional under the reasoning the Court applied in Buckley and Citizens United? Why or why not?
Answer: Conditional spending doctrine
The case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld federal limits on campaign contributions and ruled that spending money to influence elections is a form of constitutionally protected free speech. The court also stated candidates can give unlimited amounts of money to their own campaigns. Freedom of Speech and Press: Upheld two decisions in McCain- Feingold, including electioneering communication provisions and the “soft money” ban. Federal Election Campaign Act provides for public funding of presidential candidates. Candidates must raise at least $5,000 in individual contributions of $200 or less in each of 20 states and may then apply for federal funds to match all individual contributions of $250 or less that they receive. Supreme Court case that decided that the part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law that prevents corporations and labor unions from spending money on advertisements independent of political candidates or parties is unconstitutional. Law should not punish speech unless there was a clear and present danger of producing harmful actions. The clear-and-present-danger test. Supreme Court case that prohibited campaign finance reform law from banning political advocacy.
