Here’s the opinion. Haven’t read it yet; I’ll check back in after I do.
Read and discuss.
Sua
Oh, Christ on a crutch, it’s a monster. Three separate majority opinions, each covering different parts of the campaign reform law. Five separate concurrences, dissents, or concurrences in part/dissents in part. This is going to be a bear to unravel.
Sua
What a tediously uninteresting and unnecessarily-complex piece of writing.
No wonder our legal system is so messed up – people must train for years to be able to comprehend this garbage.
Not being a lawyer, can I assume as a man-in-the-street that if the career politicians and businesses are against it, it must be a good thing? 
The good news is that you don’t have to unravel it if you don’t want to, Sua. Short version: McCain-Feingold is affirmed as the law of the land. I’m sure we’ve discussed it before.
Holy Flurgin Jawflapping! That’s a 298 page opinion with a syllabus, the brief summary of the decision, weighing in at 19 pages. Although it’s being reported as being a 5-4 decision, it seems to be a bit more complicated than that:
Although I generally am interested in reading important Supreme Court decisions, I think I’ll give this one a pass.
So much for the first amendment.
Betcha a dollar one of the looneytunes leftists cited international law.
You owe me a dollar. Send it to McCain’s re-election fund.
So, what real-world consequences can we expect to see, and when?
Not sure if this was written with a smirk, but I enjoyed it.
It takes a lot of pages to explain away “Congress shall pass no law”.
Give me 298 pages and I can prove to you that the sky is gray.
:mad:
This is a bad day for the first ammendment.
I’d protest this during the next election, but I don’t think I’m allowed to anymore.
Why is this a bad day for the first amendment? Because of limits to contributions? Now the average american can’t contribute $100,000 to a fund? Gee, that sucks.
Where is the line between campaign contributions as free speech and campaign contributions as quid pro quo drawn? If the likelihood of quid pro quo goes up in direct proportion to the size of individual campaign contributions, is it acceptable to draw that line with legislation? “After this point, your free speech becomes a subtle bribe”?
Those people are hardly average, but that’s not what’s important.
What’s important, and the reason why this violates the 1st Amendment, is that these people are not permitted to speak their mind any longer. Sure they’re biased. Sure they have an agenda. But you have an agenda, too. How would you like it if the moderators here limited you to one post a week in each forum, rather than the unfettered access you are used to?
It doesn’t take a lawyer or Nobel prize winner to see that people have lost the ability to say what they want to whenever they want to about whatever they want to.
Since when does money have First Amendment rights? Is a corporation somehow entitled to a political opinion, and the means to effect that opinion?
The struggle over enfranchisement has been with us since the Founding Fuckups. History buffs among you will recall that the right to vote was originally bestowed upon persons of proven substance and probity, to ensure that the common riff-raff didn’t get uppity. We did anyway. From that time, until our present day, that struggle is the very essence of the progressive movement in American politics. (Progressive, left-wing, liberal, Perfidious Liars[sup]TM[/sup]…whatever.)
McCain-Feingold is a noble effort, and like most noble efforts, doomed. Money will out. But it is a step, however faltering, in the right direction. Finally, it is up to us to educate ourselves and our brethren, to listen skeptically, to ask ourselves just who the heck is the Citizen’s Committee for Patriotic Goodness (Glaxo, Citibank, Boeing…) and why they are so fervently committed to the continued tenure of Sen. Suckup. For further proof, one need only examine the career of Sen Phil Gramm (R-TX). (I recommend a pair of tongs so that you might keep it at arms length, so the slime does not drip on your shoes…)
I refuse to accept the notion that a corporation has any right to a political opinion and the means to effect that opinion.
(If you stand over the grave of Tom Paine, you will detect angry grumbling, but maybe yesterday a popping cork and a chuckle.)
I contribute money to a political organization so that they can pool resources of like minded people like me and use them to influence politicians.
Groups like the NRA, and the ACLU are now are prevented from free speech during certain times around an election.
This is simply wrong. It’s the prevention of speech, not contributions.
You know it’s a shitty law when the NRA and the ACLU both agree that it violates the constitution.
Well, I’m as radical on freedom of speech as the next whack-job (given what I do I’d better be) but, not being all that conversant in constitutional law I’d like to ask this question:
Given that there’s ample precendent for placing limitations on the rights enumerated in the constitution (the old ‘yelling FIRE in a crowded theater’ thing) wouldn’t the reasoning be that the inherent corruption of the political process due to large-scale campaign dollars makes necessary these limitations as an available means of preventing corruption?
You mean that the government can tell people what they can and cannot say? But, it’s really for our own good. And, it’s only during an election.
Scary.
Of course they are. Limits are placed in a somewhat fumbling attempt to achieve a kind of rough parity. A thought experiment, AD. We have, as you know, somewhat divergent political opinions. I will give you a box and a section of the public square. I get a $400,000 sound truck with 36 inch speakers and amplifiers that would make The Who sick with envy. Feel equal, do you?
**
That would be one heck of a post, and I’d probably get in trouble for a blistering political diatribe posted in Cafe Society. No, I wouldn’t like it, but not for reasons of political parity, and political parity is what is crucial here.
**
I’m sure the lawyers lurking amongst us are flattered by the comparison. It is kind of you to lighten thier burden of calumny and disdain.
But you just did. As did I. Ain’t it cool?