# Could Montana get the court to reconsider Citizens United? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 10, 2012, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699 "2012-06-10T08:43:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/61 "2012-06-12T16:27:28Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > Your state is corrupt and that corruption spreads down to pretty low levels. Even in South Dakota, I never had a law enforcement official try to extort money out of me..and in MT in happened THREE TIMES. When I tried to find a teaching job in MT, the pay was a joke…even by local area standards (MT, WY, ND, Idaho). Your pay for public officials was like-wise (unless things have changed in the past 25 years. You mean you got a speeding ticket or some other minor infraction and the officer asked you to post bond on the spot? It’s one of the state’s quirks, but it’s completely legitimate-- the $40 doesn’t go into the officer’s pocket. It makes sense especially with the speeding tickets since we get tons of out-of-state traffic and the fines are too low to bother trying to track someone down. Making them pay on the spot is the best way to assure they’ll actually pay their fine. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/62 "2012-06-12T16:51:06Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > In a perfect world, there would be no such thing a professional politicians. Good, honest citizens would serve the public for a term or two, then return to private life. While in office, they would act in the best interest of the nation, rather than following a partisan agenda, and have the balls to make unpopular decisions if they believed it was the best course of action, regardless of of political considerations. > > That world has never existed. And never will. Not to start an extensive side debate, but the “citizen legislator” model usually creates far more problems than it solves. The work of drafting and considering laws even in a small state is simply too complicated for one person, and if you only serve for a term or two you really can’t really get a good staff recruited and retained. A lot of the citizen legislature states also pay their legislators virtually nothing, which doesn’t help either. This creates two problematic results: laws get written without oversight from anyone with any real legal training and many just plain sloppy laws get passed that either get overturned by the courts or are unworkable in actual legal practice. More importantly though, amateur legislators without good permanent staffs rely far more heavily on lobbyists to do the lion’s share of research and often even the actual drafting of laws. The ideal is that citizen legislators should be less susceptible to undue influence, but in reality it’s usually worse. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/63 "2012-06-12T17:10:14Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > . The ideal is that citizen legislators should be less susceptible to undue influence, but in reality it’s usually worse. The reality is that a lot of legislators are lawyers. Drafting legislation ain’t that damn hard. I’ve been a part of a group that did that…and the ink was still damp\* on my license while I did it. \*Mild exaggeration. I’d been practicing for about a year at the time. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/64 "2012-06-12T17:14:07Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Keep the dictionary. Maybe you can use it to prop up the copies of the US Code and the US Reporter you should try to read. You should probably represent Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman: > [@](#): > > Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was charged with bribery and sent to prison because, prosecutors said, a wealthy hospital executive gave him $500,000 in exchange for appointing him to a state hospital planning board. > > But this half-million-dollar “bribe” did not enrich Siegelman. Instead, the disputed money was a contribution to help fund a statewide referendum on whether Alabama should have a state lottery to support education, a pet cause of the governor’s. > > [LA Times](http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/02/nation/la-na-siegelman-bribery-20120603) Maybe you can visit the former governor in prison, pat him on the back and tell him he’s not really in jail for taking a bribe, since according to you, he did no such thing. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/65 "2012-06-12T17:20:48Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > Maybe you can visit the former governor in prison, pat him on the back and tell him he’s not really in jail for taking a bribe, since according to you, he did no such thing. Since there was an explicit quid pro quo - contribution in return for a political appointment - according to Bricker, that was a bribe. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/66 "2012-06-12T17:21:09Z")
And relevant to my last cite: > [@](#): > > The U.S. Supreme Court said this morning that it will not hear the appeals of former Gov. Don Siegelman and HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy. They had asked the justices to review the standard for proving when a regular political contribution becomes a bribe of an elected official. > > [Alabama Live](http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/06/us_supreme_court_rebuffs_don_s.html) This means that the Supreme Court allowed to stand the verdict in this case that a campaign contribution is a bribe if a politician agrees to do something in return and even if the politician did not directly get the money (i.e. a campaign contribution, which was the case here.) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/67 "2012-06-12T17:26:26Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Since there was an explicit quid pro quo - contribution in return for a political appointment - according to Bricker, that was a bribe. So according to Bricker, “I will make sure you get elected by making massive campaign contributions and then you will always vote my way” is not a bribe. But “I will make massive campaign contributions to your pet causes if you give me special treatment” is not. So a campaign contribution is a bribe… Unless it’s not a bribe. Gotcha. As my first citation says: > [@](#): > > The federal bribery law makes it a crime for an official to “corruptly solicit, demand … or accept … anything of value of $5,000 or more” with the intent of being “influenced or rewarded.” The law was aimed at officials who secretly take money for themselves, **but prosecutors have used it against officials who use their offices to solicit campaign contributions.** Emphasis, mine. Even if this laughable inconsistancy can be peddled with a straight face, the fact is that this sure would give the average person the “appearance of corruption.” ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/68 "2012-06-12T18:03:41Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > The reality is that a lot of legislators are lawyers. Drafting legislation ain’t that damn hard. I’ve been a part of a group that did that…and the ink was still damp\* on my license while I did it. > > \*Mild exaggeration. I’d been practicing for about a year at the time. It’s not so much that it requires any particular expertise, it’s just that there’s far too much work to do during a short legislative session. A single person can’t even skim all the the bills that come up, let alone read them over carefully to make sure they fully understand all the implications. You don’t need a bunch of Clarence Darrows, but you need a staff of people you trust with at least some sort of legal training (young lawyers or even law students or poli sci people will do just fine) to give everything a look over, otherwise you’re just taking the draftor’s word that the law says what they say it does and that every little provision is drafted in a way that makes sense. This is basically the way a citizen legislature works-- an individual legislator has his/her pet bills that they scrutinize (including the ones they propose), but for most of the bills they have to trust their fellow legislators and the lobbyists to give them accurate information. Most of the citizen legislatures work just fine and they have some advantages over professional legislatures, but one of their drawbacks is that they depend a lot more on outside parties than one where you have professional legislators presiding over staffs that can give each individual bill adequate attention and research. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/69 "2012-06-12T18:07:43Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > It’s not so much that it requires any particular expertise, it’s just that there’s far too much work to do during a short legislative session. A single person can’t even skim all the the bills that come up, let alone read them over carefully to make sure they fully understand all the implications. If a single person cannot read the bills that come up, that means that there are too many bills. Not everything in the world needs to be legislated, and not everything in the world has to be re-legislated. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/70 "2012-06-12T18:26:58Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > If a single person cannot read the bills that come up, that means that there are too many bills. Not everything in the world needs to be legislated, and not everything in the world has to be re-legislated. Unfortunately, there’s not really any getting around that with all the services people expect government to provide these days. During the 90 day session the legislature in my state holds every other year they barely have time to pass a budget to keep existing state business going-- they have very little time to actually revise and create laws. And 90 days is really pushing it for someone who has a farm or a business or a law practice to run. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/71 "2012-06-12T18:46:01Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > In a perfect world, there would be no such thing a professional politicians. Good, honest citizens would serve the public for a term or two, then return to private life. While in office, they would act in the best interest of the nation, rather than following a partisan agenda, and have the balls to make unpopular decisions if they believed it was the best course of action, regardless of of political considerations. > > That world has never existed. And never will. Yeah, I agree. You may be missing the point of my post: I’m saying that, because we’re not in a perfect world, of course political contributions corrupt the process. I think we need to get away from political contributions entirely. Speech is free, but paying for speech is not the same thing as speaking. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/72 "2012-06-12T18:49:12Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > If a single person cannot read the bills that come up, that means that there are too many bills. Not everything in the world needs to be legislated, and not everything in the world has to be re-legislated. This betrays an ignorance of the process. No one person needs to read the text of every bill. Reading the abstract is enough for most members. Most of a bill is technical data. You don’t have to read the whole bill any more than you need to read the SDMB html to understand the message board. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/73 "2012-06-12T18:57:15Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > This betrays an ignorance of the process. No one person needs to read the text of every bill. Reading the abstract is enough for most members. Of course. Then they find out what’s in the bill after they pass it. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/74 "2012-06-12T19:09:22Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Of course. Then they find out what’s in the bill after they pass it. That’s not what I said. Is there some reason you’re making nonsense statements? Ah, I understand actually, you’re using the moronic conservative meme that suggests that Pilosi said that congress didn’t know what was in the bill. That’s not what she said, but why should you stick to facts and intelligent discourse when you can whip out a bumpersticker with misinformation on it? So tell me, as a conservative, are you okay if people side with you because they believe things that aren’t true? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/75 "2012-06-12T19:18:50Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > That’s not what I said. Is there some reason you’re making nonsense statements? > > Ah, I understand actually, you’re using the moronic conservative meme that suggests that Pilosi said that congress didn’t know what was in the bill. Since once in a while there are stories that pop up where the congressmen are surprised about some provisions of the Obamacare bill and once already (or was it twice?) they had to legislate a fix for the provision that they apparently didn’t know was in the bill, it is pretty clear that they voted for a bill they didn’t read or comprehend fully. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/76 "2012-06-12T19:42:13Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > You should probably represent Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman:Maybe you can visit the former governor in prison, pat him on the back and tell him he’s not really in jail for taking a bribe, since according to you, he did no such thing. Nope, he’s out of luck, as I carefully explained. > [@](#): > > The defendants’ bribery convictions were based on allegations that they made and executed a corrupt agreement whereby Scrushy gave Siegelman $500,000 in exchange for Siegelman’s appointing him to Alabama’s Certificate of Need Review Board (the “CON” Board). That is different than a generalized campaign contribution in the expectation that the candidate will vote for things you favor. Siegelman’s conviction was because he agreed to perform a specific task, not because his contributor gave the contribution with a generalized expectation of currying favor with Siegelman. It’s quite mysterious to me how you could believe that Siegelman’s conviction stood in contradiction to what I said, because your link _specifically_ says he was convicted for taking a $500,000 contribution in exchange for appointing him to a state hospital planning board. And my post specifically said that the act becomes prosecutable if the benefit is given to the candidate, rather than his campaign, or if the contribution is an explicit quid-pro-quo for action on a specific piece of legislation. Did you deliberately ignore that? Did you not understand it? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/77 "2012-06-12T19:58:09Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > So according to Bricker, “I will make sure you get elected by making massive campaign contributions and then you will always vote my way” is not a bribe. But “I will make massive campaign contributions to your pet causes if you give me special treatment” is not. > > So a campaign contribution is a bribe… Unless it’s not a bribe. Gotcha. Misuse of quotation marks. Here’s the actual line I responded to: > [@](#): > > Councilman Bricker, I will make sure you get elected by blanketing the airwaves and outspending any other candidates 10 to one in advertising dollars, if you vote my way. I see that you added the word “always” in your version of what I said: > [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > So according to Bricker, “I will make sure you get elected by making massive campaign contributions and then you will always vote my way” is not a bribe. Did you decline to use the VBB quote function because you knew that you could change my quote inside quotation marks without drawing a warning? The word makes a huge difference. The first – “vote my way” – is nothing but a generalized expectation of future actions consistent with the general views of the contributor. He’s allowed to contribute to a candidate who thinks as he does. But the word always brings us from the general to the very specific. As the court explained: > [@US v. Siegelman](#): > > The instruction approved in Evans required that the acceptance of the campaign donation be in return for a specific official action—a quid pro quo. **No generalized expectation of some future favorable action will do. The official must agree to take or forego some specific action in order for the doing of it to be criminal…** (emphasis added) > [@](#): > > Even if this laughable inconsistancy can be peddled with a straight face, the fact is that this sure would give the average person the “appearance of corruption.” Who cares what you think the average person would think? The question was whether it’s a bribe or not. That’s a matter of clearly defined criminal law, I answered correctly, and you apparently cannot comprehend the fact. In any event, this has nothing to do with the Citizens United decision. Under these same facts, Siegelman would be convicted today, with Citizens United in full force. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/78 "2012-06-12T21:02:24Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Oh, sure, I’d be concerned about THAT. > > Thing is, that’s not happening. Ask Meg Whitman, or Carly Fiorina. Santorum and Gingrich’s billionaires didn’t get them a puppet in the white house either but you don’t see the how that challenges the integrity and public confidence in our democratic process? Does the billionaire have to win for that kind of money to undermine public confidence in our democracy? > [@Terr](#): > > It is because money is NOT speech. Donating money to a candidate, whether by individual or corporation, is not “speech”. Pooling together money, whether by individuals or corporations, _for the purposes of political expression_ IS speech. How is this not clear? Just because you have drawn clear distinctions in your mind about the difference between giving a million dollars to your candidate to run attack ads against his opponent and running those attack ads yourself doesn’t mean that the distinction is clear. > [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > Following their logic, the president in 2016 might be GE. I suspect that candidates will start selling space on their suits like nascar drivers. > [@Bricker](#): > > To complete the crime of bribery, you also have to show something more than the acceptance of a campaign contribution on the part of the official. As the Supreme Court observed in McCormick v US: Yeah, but its not necessary to create the appearance of impropriety. There is no voter fraud problem but we have to fix the problem. There is actualyl a problem with the influence of mopney in politics but thats OK. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/79 "2012-06-12T23:22:21Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Just because you have drawn clear distinctions in your mind about the difference between giving a million dollars to your candidate to run attack ads against his opponent and running those attack ads yourself doesn’t mean that the distinction is clear. When you’re running ads - whether attack ads or not - it’s YOUR political expression. Clearly. No ands ifs or buts. Prohibiting it is abridging speech. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2012, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699/80 "2012-06-13T00:44:19Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > When you’re running ads - whether attack ads or not - it’s YOUR political expression. Clearly. No ands ifs or buts. Prohibiting it is abridging speech. Why is a billionaire entitled to more political expression than a working Joe? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-montana-get-the-court-to-reconsider-citizens-united/624699.md?page=5)