Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
First, there was Citizens United. Now, we have the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the McCutcheon case. It does appear that our country’s campaign finance laws may have been “eviscerated”—as noted by Justice Breyer when he wrote that, taken together with Citizens United, McCutcheon “eviscerates our Nation’s campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve.”
Corporations are people…money is speech. The more money one has to spend…the more “speech” one can afford to buy—especially where political campaigns are concerned.
Dahlia Lithwick (Slate), in writing about Chief Justice John Roberts after the court’s ruling in the McCutcheon case, said that it seemed weird: “The man takes the Metro to work, and yet he handily dismisses what every human American knows to be true: That if dollars are speech, and billions are more speech, then billionaires who spend money don’t do so for the mere joy of making themselves heard, but because it offers them a return on their investment.”
Amy Davidson (The New Yorker) said that Roberts relied on a very narrow measure of corruption in the McCutcheon ruling: “Ingratiation and access … are not corruption.” She added that the argument, in effect, is that political parties themselves cannot be corrupted: “There is a clear, administrable line between money beyond the base limits funneled in an identifiable way to a candidate—for which the candidate feels obligated—and money within the base limits given widely to a candidate’s party—for which the candidate, like all other members of the party, feels grateful.”
Roberts wrote, “Congress may target only a specific type of corruption—‘quid pro quo’ corruption.” Roberts explains what isn’t “quid pro quo” with regard to spending large sums of money on elections:
Spending large sums of money in connection with elections, but not in connection with an effort to control the exercise of an officeholder’s official duties, does not give rise to such quid pro quo corruption. Nor does the possibility that an individual who spends large sums may garner “influence over or access to” elected officials or political parties. And because the Government’s interest in preventing the appearance of corruption is equally confined to the appearance of quid pro quo corruption, the Government may not seek to limit the appearance of mere influence or access.
SOURCES
Justice Roberts Hearts Billionaires: The chief either doesn’t believe, or doesn’t care, that money corrupts politics. (Slate)
A Blistering Dissent in ‘McCutcheon’: Conservatives Substituted Opinion for Fact (Moyers & Company)
Justice Roberts Defends the Embattled Rich in McCutcheon (The New Yorker)
The John Roberts Project (The New Yorker)
Jon Steward is no Constitutional scholar either. 😉
Justice Johnny Come Lately …
Dredd – Bill Maher, good progressive that he is, is hardly a Constitutional scholar. Again, how did Roberts violate his oath of office.
Dredd – again I ask you, exactly how has Roberts violated his oath of office?
Scalia Is the Right Wing’s Version of the West Wing’s Justice Roy Ashland (Supac). Scalia is Roberts’ big bother.
I do not watch West Wing.
Dredd – then how has Roberts violated his oath of office?
Nick Spinelli
Paul, Hang tough, bro! The ganging up is not nearly as bad as it was.
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Certain things draw flies Nick.
rafflaw – I do remember the article on the Chamber. But that has nothing to do with the number of amicus briefs.
Paul Schulte
Dredd – just because you do not agree with his decisions does not mean Roberts has violated his oath of office.
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Nor anyone else.
Thus, logical deduction: that is not my reason for saying that.
Just because you say something incoherent does not make it coherent.
Paul, Hang tough, bro! The ganging up is not nearly as bad as it was. Hard to believe, but the archives prove it so. It is less of an echo chamber, more civil and diverse.
Deletion notice: I have had to delete two or three comments by Anonymously Yours, and one from Dredd and Paul respectively. Again, we love to have opposing views on this blog. No need to make it personal. If you cannot discuss such subjects without going personal, please do not comment.
Roberts really is a deceptive and dishonest jurist who has violated his oath of office.
He is a Supreme Troll.
SWM, That doesn’t surprise me.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/politics/27judge.html O’Connor is no fan of Citizens United, either.
GBer’s, A few of us are getting eaten alive on the gambling thread. Assistance would be appreciated.
SWM, I’ve read excerpts of Steven’s book. What seems to be one of his biggest problems w/ the losses he suffered while on the bench is 2nd Amendment issues. Regardless of their political point of view, I like politicians, judges, athletes, etc. who bow out gracefully. It’s unseemly in my opinion to whine about all his losses while on the court. And, I would say the same about Scalia, who probably will not bow out gracefully either. O’Connor has been my favorite in my lifetime. She’s written and spoken after retirement, but not in the whiny tenor of Stevens.
Actually Paul, you may have forgotten an article written several weeks ago that showed the Chamber of Commerce had a 90-95% success rate with cases it filed an amicus brief, in so I am not so sure that the Roberts majority does not weigh who is supporting which side.
Secondly, why would the House do 50 votes to defund or overturn legislation when the Supremes approved it and the Senate won’t vote on nonsensical legislation? Could it just be politics that causes them to do that vote which cost the taxpayers large amounts of our money?
Finally,
Justice Stevens isn’t the first to suggest that the second amendment was designed only for militia purposes. That was the ruling of the court for decades. You also might want to look into why the founders were so concerned to make sure militia’s right to arm was protected. Especially in the southern colonies.
Dredd – just because you do not agree with his decisions does not mean Roberts has violated his oath of office.
Just to make everyone happy Stevens is a far leftist. Now, everybody happy? He is not dangerous because he will never get the changes and he has no power anymore.
ay – can you have a war of non-aggression. Because I do not agree with something Elaine posts am I at war with her? Does that cause an issue? Or do you want this blog to be an echo chamber? Would that make you more comfortable?
It was Annie that I was responding to about the bullying, not you – ay. This is just the type of name calling I was talking about.