I did a brief search for this and saw nothing so thought I’d have a go. If this has been done please point me to it and my apologies.
Reading up on the SCOTUS latest ruling I came across a bit that they will be re-hearing some arguments in the “Hillary: The Movie” case. Essentially the case seems to be about restrictions on corporate financing of political messages. In short, do corporations possess a constitutional right to free speech or can they be restricted in their activities (e.g. restrictions of funding of political messages)?
It seems the current court may be leaning to the notion that corporations do indeed possess a constitutional right to free speech which this infringes although it remains to be seen just how far they may construe that.
Looking around for a bit more information I found this article by The Master which touches on the notion of corporation as private citizen.
Lots more to the article and it mentions that corporations as a person has been chipped away at yet it seems the SCOTUS may well prop that right back up soon.
The debate, I guess, is does this make sense to anyone? How does a Constitution that guarantees rights to the people extend to a company?
Note that I do not think this should be a partisan discussion (although it may be…dunno). While the case at question is one taking Hillary Clinton to task it could just as easily have been one that took McCain or anyone to task. If the SCOTUS opens Pandora’s Box on this one our election cycles will probably become a lot more…interesting.
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) (the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act) has to be one of the worst thought out bills in recent history. The 1st Amendment, while protecting all forms of speech, seems most important in protecting political speech. It has to protect that kind of speech, or the public has no recourse except for action against the state and its representatives. That’s the most crucial aspect of the 1st amendment. How can censoring speech (of individuals, or in this case, a group of individuals) before elections do any good? This only acts to insulate incumbents from challengers and deaden discourse.
A corporation is simply a group of individuals working in concert; that entity should retain all of the rights the individuals have, and that includes unrestricted 1st amendment rights, and especially unrestricted 1st amendment rights for political speech. The SCOTUS shouldn’t need to hear more arguments; the decision should easily come for Citizens United.
As an aside, and not trying to knock the thread off track: I understand the motivations behind the bill: to clean up politics and “get the money out of politics”. But as long as DC is the biggest player on the field and can order around others at will, money will continue to flow there as people wish to influence or coerce others. The only way to stop that flow is to lessen the power of DC. The Fed is way too big, and too powerful.
Sounds great in principle but it really is about getting the money out of politics.
Imagine Rupert Murdoch having unfettered ability to push his message. He has News Corp, one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, at his disposal. Can you compete with that?
What about foreign companies? As long as they have some business here they can push the political discourse in any way they see fit?
I am all for free speech. And if you and some others want to pool your resources as private citizens fine. I do not see how this extends to corporations though. I read the Constitution as extending to the People. Not corporations.
That is not to say corporations have no access to speak their collective minds but that in some cases, particularly as regards political campaigns, some restriction is due.
Corporations already have a huge number of legal differences between their rights and those that apply to real persons. They cannot vote, cannot hold office, cannot marry, cannot exercise freedom of religion, cannot bear arms - why should they automatically have the same freedom of speech as real persons?
Well, ask Roberts, Alito, and Thomas. I’m sure they’ll come up with something. I think they’ll lose, but the dissent should be a fascinating read. I’m most interested to see how Scalia lands. I think he’ll side against the corporation, but I might be optimistic on that…
And as my first post addressed, the way to get money out of politics is not to restrict people’s speech rights; the way to get money out of politics is to lessen the impact politics has on our lives, by restricting the power and reach of the federal government. However noble the intentions, the McCain-Feingold Act is misguided and creates bad precedent.
Also, as the Court has intimated on numerous occasions, the cure for speech you don’t like is more speech (ie, speak up and argue against it), not less (ie, a restriction on others’ speech).
They are not the same thing and saying a corporation is really just a collection of individuals is misleading.
If you and I get together and make “Hillary: The Movie” fine. If we get other individuals to donate money to distribute the movie great!
A corporation however is a different creature. To me this beating the idealist drum of more free speech is akin to beating the drum of a totally free market or a communist ideal (to take two extremes of the same coin). On paper the ideal may sound great. In practice they are proven disasters.
Handing Constitutional rights to corporations? C’mon…where do you see that anywhere in the text? In my view handing companies the same rights diminishes the rights of the people. Personally I want my rights as strong as possible. I want to own my government and I want to own our corporations. Not the other way around.
How is it different? I am curious as to how you view a corporation different from a group of individuals working together. What is the crucial difference that makes it OK to censor the media that comes from a corporation, but not that comes from a group of individuals working together?
A group of individuals who come together to defeat Hillary Clinton are expressly together to achieve that goal. A corporation is comprised of individuals who have no such common cause. Not the employees and not the investors.
The defeat HRC crowd have gathered because they have a stake in society and common interest as citizens. The corporation’s only stake is in its own existence and whatever it deems best towards that end (witness the investors who went after Chrysler as was their fiduciary responsibility rather than try to play nice and come to a solution that was better for the country as a whole).
A group gathered to defeat HRC is very much answerable to those gathered to achieve just that. If they hire Micheal Moore to make the film they will immediately run into issues with their own members and likely dissolve. Corporations, while presumably answerable to its shareholders, generally aren’t. Again its shareholders are likely a very diverse group politically and as was shown in the latest financial crisis they have next to no real ability to direct the company they invest with. The CEO/BOD mostly call the shots and do as they see fit.
At issue here is what amounts to a political advertisement.
I’m curious (I do not know):
Can the New York Times agree to run an ad paid for by McCain but refuse to run an ad from Obama during an election (for the sake of argument assume the ads are identical with only the names changed…e.g. Vote McCain! and Vote Obama!)?
I’m suggesting that a corporate-funded NYT editorial criticizing Hillary Clinton and a corporate-funded movie criticizing Hillary Clinton both strike me as political speech by a corporation.
The press is generally held to have somewhat different rights because it’s the press, but it’s generally never suggested that a corporate media outlet should have different rights with regard to what it publishes from an individual publisher.
Right, but freedom of the press is actually written into the Constitution. Freedom of corporate speech is not specifically there (it’s freedom of speech, so there is some interpretation that can be made as to whether it applies only to natural persons or natural and artificial persons).
Whoa, judicial activism over here! Everybody come see the judicial activism, and the legislating from the bench!
Fie, feh, and phooey! Corporations are already endowed with inalienable rights, those exact rights that are accorded to each of its members. Why does it need to be accorded a separate set of rights on its own? Can a corporation be drafted? Does a corporation have a political point of view, outside of its own financial interest?
Corporate entities are not beings, despite legal abstractions. Plus, the idea does violence to equal representation: a corporation made up of five members would have precisely the same political rights as a corporation made up of five hundred thousand.
Wealthy people tend to head big, powerful corporations. This does nothing more worthwhile than place more political power in the hands of people who have too much already.
My liberal hypocrisy is plenty flexible enough to accept that. Tell you what, though, I am consistent in my opposition to the death penalty, though if any corporation deserves to be publicly hanged, it would be Haliburton, and maybe R.J. Reynolds Tobacco.
Because of the case in the OP? Because there’s no good reason why this particular piece of speech should be suppressed while similar pieces in other media or by a news corporation or by an individual would be considered to be protected?
Isn’t that the most important type of political point of view, where government action directly affects your interests?
We’re talking about free speech, not voting rights. Equal representation doesn’t come into it, because free speech is not legally considered to be a zero-sum game.
