In Ohio, Sherrod Brown went full Jaime West this week in his U.S. Senate campaign. West is the Indiana candidate who became a viral sensation for pledging to “fire all Republicans” because “I just don’t like them.” Brown appears to be eager to jump on the same rage train and pledged that he will vote against any Republican judicial nominee regardless of their qualifications or background.
Brown is literally pledging that he will toss away the constitutional duty of “advice and consent” under Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution and vote blindly against anyone nominated by President Trump because he does not like him.
Brown told MS NOW that “we’re not, obviously, confirming judges that are Trump judges.” Unfortunately, it is common for senators of the opposing party to vote against a President’s nominees. However, they at least preserve the pretense of “advice and consent.” Brown is trying to win the race to the bottom by saying that Trump could nominate Louis Brandeis and he would still vote against him because he is a Trump judicial nominee.
Brown seems to be channeling Jaime West, who admitted that she does “not even talk to them” and hates Republicans.
It is a curious pledge in a state that voted for Trump three times and is Republican.
What is most concerning is that this pledge is made as leading Democrats are lining up in favor of packing the Court. The combination would ravage our court system through packing and attrition. Brown would simply not confirm any new judges as a way of reducing Republican judges on the bench.
Brown and his colleagues are given absolute discretion in casting their votes on judicial nominees, including doing so on a strictly partisan basis. They also have the right not to vote on a nominee, as was the case of the nomination of Merrick Garland. While I also criticized the failure to vote on Garland, it was within the authority of the Senate to forego such a vote.
There was a time when the Senate was called the “world’s greatest deliberative body.” The phrase attributed to former President James Buchanan is often repeated today like a mantra by senators who have dispensed with serious deliberations in favor of endless demonstrations. Now, Brown is actually running on a “no deliberation” pledge.
I am old enough to remember when senators routinely voted for judges from the other party and different ideology as a matter of political integrity. For many decades, senators insisted that they were bound to vote for a nominee if they were qualified even if they disagreed with their liberal or conservative jurisprudential views.
With Brown, even the pretense of deliberation is over. He is pledging not to consider the merits of nominees in fulfilling his oath to give “advice and consent” on nominations. Joining Jaime West, he is announcing that he just does not like them and so he will not speak with them.
The senators now seem to be offering pure undiluted rage to voters. In Rage and the Republic, I discuss how the Framers designed our Constitution to prevent a democracy from becoming what Benjamin Rush called a mobocracy. It is now becoming the captive of the very blind passions that it was designed to resist.
The Brown pledge is a chilling moment for this once august institution. It was designed to be a bulwark against the mob, an institution that would temper passions, not yield to them. Indeed, in his final farewell to the Senate in 1805, Aaron Burr remarked that “if the Constitution be destined ever to perish by the sacrilegious hand of the demagogue or the usurper, which God avert, its expiring agonies will be witnessed on this floor.”
Jonathan Turley, is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Democrats show their true colors. Traitors to the nation. traitors to democracy, refusal to honor the election of the Presidency and that they hate this country and want a communist dictatorship.
That’s mouthful for 6:08AM.
From January 2026:
Biden’s DOJ Investigated Omar And Found No Crimes
The Justice Department under the Biden administration opened an investigation into Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, in 2024 to scrutinize her finances, campaign spending and interactions with a foreign citizen, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The inquiry, initiated by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and the department’s public integrity unit in June of that year, appears to have stalled for lack of evidence, according to one of the people who requested anonymity to discuss internal department matters.
From The New York Times
1/26/2026
……………………………………..
MAGA commenters below are excitedly claiming ‘Biden investigated Omar’. It’s true and Biden’s DOJ found nothing to prosecute. Yet Trump’s DOJ had already investigated Omar in 2019. They too found nothing to prosecute.
New Fox News Poll:
Trump’s approval rating is down to 36%. And corruption ranks as the biggest concern of voters. Here’s a sample paragraph:
* * * * *
The top five voter concerns are government corruption (60% extremely concerned), inflation (58%), gas prices (50%), government leadership (49%), and healthcare (48%). And double digits more trust the Democrats than the Republicans to handle each of those.
Source: Fox News, October 14
Rassmussen – the only DAILY tracking poll has Trump at 43 and rising. Though mostly that is noise, He has vibrated between 47 and 41 for all of 2026 – the trend is flat.
Fox is one of the worst polls – despite it loosely being associated with Fox.
The Recen AFP poll – which polled more than 100,000 people across all swing states and did so by going door to door,
AFP then remove all the republicans and democrats and was left with nearly 25000 independents. That poll shows pretty much the opposite of your claims – Voters beleive Republicans are better able to deal with the economy by more than 10 pts. They beleive democrats are more of a threat to freedom than republicans by 40pts.
With respect to your fox poll – Government corruption includes the massive corruption in Minesota, and California among others.
You can not presume when voters express concern about corruption that they are concerned about the same things you are.
Corruption is a massive problem.
If voters are concerned about inflation – that means they have bought the lies of the left. Inflation is not a fraction of what it was under Biden and it is not outside the Feds norms.
Last time I bought gas is twas 3.81 for unleaded 88.
I am sure voters are concerned about healthcare DEMOCRATS totally botched that up – and that is one of the huge places that you will find government corruption.
No one rationsl trusts democrats to handle any of these.
Nor are you going to.
Do you hav the slighest clue about any of them ?
Why are the two things that have risen the most in price over the past 40 years – education and health care ?
Because those are the things govenrment has been most involved in.
YOU say people are concerned about the cost of healthcare – But did YOU promise to fix that permanently in 2013 ?
It is YOUR “fix” that has made healthcare ridiculously expensive.
YOU also promised to save millions of lives. Please show me data anywhere that shows that PPACA saved ANY lives ?
John Say: Right now Trump is lucky to poll in the low 40’s. This Fox poll, by the way, shows Trump dropping in popularity. And ‘no’, Republicans are NOT considered stronger on the economy. Not anymore!
John Say is full of crap.
“Last time I bought gas it was $3.81 for unleaded 88.”
That’s not unleaded gas. That’s E15 which is heavily subsidized gas with 15% ethanol. Regular gas has either 87, 89, or 91 octane with 10% ethanol. REAL unleaded with zero ethanol is the actual price at $4.15-$4.25 a gallon.
“Trump is at “43 and rising” in the daily tracking poll.”
No evidence?
Even Rasmussen’s actual daily tracking poll shows Donald Trump’s job performance sitting at 42% approval and 57% disapproval. Attempting to frame a deep 57% disapproval rating as a positive momentum indicator requires a massive amount of spin.
“A door-to-door survey by “AFP” polled 100,000 people and found Independents favor Republicans 4:1 on freedom.“
You are treating internal marketing data from a right-wing corporate lobbying firm as if it were a nonpartisan scientific poll. Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a highly conservative Super PAC founded by the billionaire Koch network. Their field agents didn’t conduct a neutral poll; they paid canvassers to knock on doors to push a specific free-market agenda. They surveyed exactly 24,089 swing voters—not 100,000—and compiled the responses into a promotional report designed to boost GOP campaigns. Citing a partisan interest group’s internal sales data to prove “what voters believe” is completely dishonest.
John Say is the Baghdad Bob of the right.
Lets address some REAL numbers – the only ones we have so far. We have early and mailin voting in 4 states. The numbers are pathetic.
They are 22% BELOW the 2022 mid term. Democrats have an edge – since we have allowed nearly nationwide mailin voting Democrats out vote republicans by a very large margin in early and mailin voting. We do not know who anyone voted for – but we do know how the voters who have voted are registered (or which primary they voted in) Democrats are without any doubt ahead – but they are in extremely deep trouble if Republican election day voting is not severely depressed – because as I said – primarily democrat mailin voting is 22% down even for a mid term.
This is also extremely important even if democrats do well – Doing well in an election where no one cared to vote is nearly meaningless.
Further you cited abunch of issues and alleged trust of democrats on those issues – but the FACT is that Democrats are not running on pretty much any issues – beyond Trump derangement syndrome. To have a mandate – you have to have a platform. The far left DSA wing of the party has a platform – though major candidated like El Sayed are running away from it as fast as they can.
Regardless we ALL know what democrats are going to do if they are elected.
They are going to run massive numbers of star chamber inquests. Nothing could put democrats in a worse position in 2028.
You are not going to remove anyone – you need 66 votes in the senate to remove someone and that is just not happening.
Further the more you investigate Trump and this administration the Bolder DOJ can be with investigating Democrats.
And DOJ can drag you in front of a grand jury. They can charge you. They can try you, They can convict you and they can send you to jail.
The more we hear about the Ilhan Omar investigation – the more serious a problem it appears to be – first it is a RICO investigation That means you have to prove a pattern of criminal conduct over time, but it also means you can use crimes for which the statute of limitations has expired.
Interestingly I learned her name is not even Ilhan Omar. Omare is the name of the man that expedited her families escape from Somalia.
Her real name – and that of all her family is the same as her “brusband”.
Aparently the Democrat candidate who lost to her in I beleive it was 2018 has been doing alot of digging.
She claims that this fixation on her age is not important – because she contacted the State department and DHS and there does not appear to be any record that either she or her father were ever naturalized. I.E she may not even be a citizen.
I find it extremely hard to beleive that everyone missed that for years. But there is a large amount of evidence she is lying about her age and that if true AND her father was actually naturalized, she was an adult at the time and did not automatically get citizenship from his naturalization.
Further the evidence that she married her brother to commit immigration fraud appears to be pretty strong, and getting better with time.
YOU fixated on Government corruption – but Omar is a democrat. Swallwell is a democrat. Platner is a democrat. The Fraud in MN and CA was done for years by Democrats. There is a long long list of fraud and misconduct that has been unearthed over the past 2 years – nearly all of it is democrats.
The story about Don Jr and Eric making billions in DOD contracts had to be retracted. They do not even own 1% of the company. Defense is a small part of that company and the Trumps have no board or management positions. Ooops.
But please spend the next 2 years impeaching Trump and other republicans. See how well that goes.
John Say,
The Washington Post ran a story tonight saying that Trump’s DOJ thoroughly investigated Omar.. back in 2019! They couldn’t find anything.
But this big show of investigating Omar right now, before the election, excites MAGA zombies like ‘you’. And that’s why Trump has staged this charade. Never mind that it’s a brazen case of election interference.
Did you not read that Joe Bidens administration started the investigation now ??
Estovir, show us an established source documenting those claims.
Did you not read that Joe Bidens administration started the investigation into Ilhan, and an Obama judge is the one who okayed the raid?? Go back to sleep. Nobody reads the Washington Post for real news.
Did you not read that Joe Bidens administration started the investigation into Ilhan, and an Obama judge is the one who okayed the raid?? Go back to sleep. Nobody reads the Washington Post for real news.
John Say is STILL being dishonest with the facts.
“Mail-in and early voting numbers are “22% below the 2022 midterm,” proving that Democratic enthusiasm is dead.“
That’s hilarious. Comparing raw, incomplete early voting tallies to final turnout models from a prior election is mathematically stupid. Early voting patterns have shifted drastically since the pandemic. Official state election boards report record-breaking early turnouts in several key battleground states, and data analysts note that adjusting these early figures actually indicates a robust pro-Democratic enthusiasm gap heading into November.
“Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is a “far-left DSA wing” candidate who is suddenly “running away” from the Democratic Socialists of America platform.“
El-Sayed has never been a member of the DSA, was never formally endorsed by the DSA, and explicitly identifies as a capitalist, not a democratic socialist. He isn’t “running away” from a platform; he was simply never a part of it, making the claim utter BS.
“Rep. Ilhan Omar is under a “RICO investigation,” her husband is her brother, and she isn’t an actual U.S. citizen.”
Nope.
While federal authorities executed a search warrant at Omar’s D.C. residence, the actual scope of the probe centers on potential irregularities in decades-old immigration paperwork completed by her father when she was a child.
The claims that she is under a “RICO” case, married her brother, or is not a citizen are unproven conservative media talking points that have circulated since 2016. Public records show Omar became a legally naturalized U.S. citizen in 2000 after arriving as a refugee in 1995.
“A story alleging Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump made billions in DoD contracts was “retracted” because they don’t own the company and it was completely false.”
Nope.
ABC News did take down its report regarding defense contracts won by a company backed by the Trump brothers’ venture capital firm, 1789 Capital. However, sources familiar with the matter at Forbes and Yahoo explicitly confirmed the piece was removed because it was published prematurely while the network finalizes its reporting—not because the underlying ties were fabricated. House Oversight Democrats maintain active inquiries into the Trump family’s extensive, unprecedented conflicts of interest within federal defense contracting.
No other president has ever had the proven corruption of Joe Biden as both a senator and president. And you liberal morons did nothing but now call President Trump upholding his oath of office and enforcing the laws of the United States corruption. You liberals are sick people.
Daily TDS from loser ANON
Madness
The failure in this line of argument, something a college sophomore would be rightly dinged over, is that Trump would never nominate Louis Brandeis. Similar to the old “Democrats would complain if Trump cured cancer,” when it is clear Trump will never cure cancer. It’s also true that Trump will never walk on water, heal the sick, restore sight to the blind, or successfully wrestle a Bengal tiger into submission.
What I understand is that Turley writes for an audience – he has two audience segments. Donald Trump himself, and the ignorant among the MAGA who tune to the various propaganda outlets.
Ignorant ANON!! DAily TDS posts!! Is TDS painful??
Trump could quite plausibly nominate someone like Brandeis. Gorsuch is extremely similar.
You seem to think that because Brandies was loosley a liberal – somewhat like Turley or Derschowitz a century ago that he has anything in common with democrats and the left today and that he does not have a great deal in common with Republicans today.
Brandeis is particularly famous for his stance on Free speech. Something the democrats loath today.
Do you really think he would be fond of democrats preasuring social media companies to censor people ? Or hiring NGOs to pressure social media companies to censor ? Brandeis was an active Zionist.
Brandeis repeatedly voted for segregation.
He found FDR’s NIRA unconstitutional.
He voted for states rights.
The left today would have canceled him in a second.
In pretending to take a figurative expression as a literal one, you forgot to mention that the main reason why Trump would not nominate Brandeis is because, well, Brandeis is dead.
Being dead, of course, does not limit Brandeis’ ability to vote for Democrats. But just because he can still vote does not mean he can write legal opinions.
The Ancient Athenian Model: True Majority Rule
In the ancient Athenian democracy, the system was a direct democracy where the poor (thetes) formed the absolute majority of the voting Assembly (Ecclesia).
2. The American Founders’ Solution: The Constitution
The American Founders were deeply read in classical history and specifically designed the U.S. Constitution to prevent a “dictatorship of the majority.”
The above is one of those pretentious, ‘high-minded’ pieces celebrating the ‘wisdom’ of ancient Greece while tying their philosophy to our ‘noble founding fathers’. What a bunch of rubbish!!
It’s just some lame defense of the Electoral College which everyone knows is totally out of date and disconnected from popular sentiment.
Thanks, Karl.
In his work Politics, Aristotle defined “democracy” not as a perfect ideal, but as a flawed system where the poor rule in their own class interest, using the power of the state to vote themselves the property and wealth of the rich through heavy taxation and confiscation.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
― Margaret Thatcher
I thought the Democrats were (finally) going to focus on candidate quality.
I thought at least some of them had figured out from election postmortems that many, many voters were very motivated above all to vote against Democrats–because of terrible job performance by Democrat incumbents, because that season’s crop of Democratic hopefuls included so many nut jobs–even if that meant voting for Trump and Trump aligned candidates.
Guess I thought wrong. This lady sounds impaired. Either by substance use or by an intellectual disability. If she is elected, maybe her Democratic peers intend to vote-in a support animal – type human to enable her to do her job.
Communists, aka democrats, have no “quality” other than their compulsion to covet, bear false witness, and steal other people’s money.
Communists, aka democrats, have no “quality” other than their compulsion to covet, bear false witness, and steal other people’s money.
The American thesis is freedom and self-reliance.
WordPress, STOP interfering with free speech.
Evantual result of making the Senate subject to the whim of voters. The framers intended it to represent each state governmnet not the people.
This Republic died in 1913. Passing of the 16th Amendment: Income Tax; as well as the 17th Amendment: electing Senators by popular vote. RIP
You usually blame Lincoln. Had enough of that too?
False. The senators were elected by the legislature, not by the government. And who elects the legislature? The people. All it did was turn legislative elections into senate elections by proxy. People voted for their local state representative based entirely on whom that candidate had pledged to support for governor — just as we all do when we vote for our state’s presidential electors. It was also an invitation for corruption — it’s much easier to buy a state legislator’s vote than it is to buy off the tens of thousands of voters whom he represents.
It also tended to make senators less responsive to the needs of their states. When a newly elected senator hears from his voters, he has to take that into account if he wants to be reelected in five years. The people he’s hearing from are likely to still be voting five years from now. But when he hears from a state legislator, who says that person will still be in the legislature in five years? If he doesn’t like me, I’ll support someone to run against him four years from now, and be sure of that person’s vote.
Turley Writes:
“The Senate was called the ‘world’s greatest deliberative body.’ The phrase attributed to former President James Buchanan in 1867.
…………………………….
Buchanan may have said that in 1857 (not 1867).
Buchanan had just taken office in 1857 when the Supreme Court passed the infamous Dred Scott decision.
Historians believe that decision was leaked to Buchanan days before he took office. Nevertheless, Buchanan, from Pennsylvania, embraced Dred Scott only to discover that fellow northerners bitterly opposed it.
One wonders if some of the decisions from the Roberts Court will rank with Dred Scott in terms of infamy. Like Citizens United, for instance, which allowed billionaires to take over American elections.
The objection to Citizens United had little to do with ‘billionaires’ and a great deal to do with freedoms which are enjoyed by corporations. The Democrats fancy that such freedoms should be limited to corporations which favor the Democratic Party.
x – CU was a near pure free speech case – contra left wing nuts it had very little to do with “corporation” .
The “corporation” in the CU case was essentially and NGO – like the Sierra club or Greenpeace. They raised money and put out a hit peice on Hillary clinton. The organizers of this were democrats not republicans – which made it sting more. And CU made it to the Supreme court – because Hillary has always been vindictive and sought to punish democrats who produced an unflattering movie of her that no one even saw.
There was not a billionaire in sight. There was not a for profit corporation in the case.
The part of the decision that the left objects to – has been the state of constitutional law for the entire history of the US.
It is the fact that individuals do not lose their rights when they act together.
Corporations are just many people pooling their resources to act together.
Churches are corporation, civic groups are corporations, unions are corporations.
In every single instance in which citizens act in an organized group – they are a corporation.
To be clear that was NOT the key part of the CU decision – that was already centuries old constitutional law.
The core part of the CU decision – which si also centuries old – but the courts had allowed SOME infringement on in the past, was the decison that you can not use restrictions on money to restrict speach – particularly political speech.
EVERYTHING about a political campaign is about SPEECH.
You pay workers to knock on doors to SPEAK to people. You buy adds to SPEAK to people. The entirety of a political campaign is persuading voters to vote for you – and that is done via speech.
If a candidate drives from town to town – it is to speak to people. If candidates stay in hotels – it is to speak to people.
If they fly from place to place it is to speak to people
If they fund raise it si to speak to people.
John Say, so wrong.
“The organizers of this were democrats not republicans…”
This is completely factually fabricated. Citizens United is a prominent, right-wing conservative non-profit organization founded in 1988 by conservative activist Floyd Brown. Its long-time president and chairman is David Bossie, who famously served as Donald Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2016. There wasn’t a Democrat anywhere near the creation or organization of the group or the film.
“…CU made it to the Supreme court – because Hillary has always been vindictive…”
Good grief, no.
Hillary Clinton did not sue Citizens United. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) blocked the distribution of Hillary: The Movie because the film violated the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (the McCain-Feingold Act). This federal law strictly prohibited any corporation or union from broadcasting “electioneering communications” within 30 days of a primary election. Citizens United proactively sued the FEC to challenge the federal statute—Hillary Clinton was not a party to the lawsuit.
There was not a billionaire in sight. There was not a for profit corporation in the case.”
True, but…
Citizens United itself is registered as a 501(c)(4) non-profit, the case was heavily backed by wealthy conservative donors and corporate interests explicitly looking to dismantle campaign finance regulations. More importantly, the Supreme Court’s ruling didn’t just apply to small non-profits; the 5–4 conservative majority explicitly extended First Amendment protections to all corporations—including massive, multi-billion-dollar for-profit conglomerates. The ruling directly catalyzed the creation of “Super PACs,” allowing billionaires to pump unprecedented billions into American elections.
“The part of the decision that the left objects to – has been the state of constitutional law for the entire history of the US.”
As usual, you’ve got it backwards.
For more than a century before Citizens United, the U.S. government strictly regulated corporate political spending to protect democracy from being overrun by massive aggregations of wealth. The Tillman Act of 1907 banned corporate contributions, and subsequent Supreme Court rulings—like Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990)—explicitly upheld limits on corporate independent spending. Citizens United didn’t preserve “centuries-old law”; it overturned a century of established legal precedent.
The actual legal breakthrough in CU was that the conservative majority redefined the legal definition of political corruption. The court ruled that independent expenditures by corporations and unions do not cause, nor do they even give the appearance of, corruption. By declaring that corruption only counts if it is a literal, direct “quid pro quo” bribe, the court legalized the modern dark-money landscape.
The Supreme Court has been making bribery much harder to prosecute by masking it as a form of free speech.
x – CU was a near pure free speech case – contra left wing nuts it had very little to do with “corporation” .
John, it had everything to do with corporations. The government’s entire case was that corporations have no first amendment rights, and Congress is free to censor corporations as it pleases. Corporations like the NY Times, Random House, CNN, Salem Media, etc. Every newspaper publisher, book publisher, cable network, and movie producer, is a corporation, and therefore, according to the Citizens United dissenters, without rights against censorship.
Sure, McCain-Feingold made an exception for these corporations, but it didn’t have to. If it had been upheld, any future congress could have eliminated that exception. And even if no congress ever chose to do so, the principle would remain, that they are subject to Congress’s whims, and that the freedom of speech was limited to individuals acting alone, which means only billionaires could afford to put out uncensored newspapers, books, or movies.
So it would actually have been a pro-billionaires decision; whereas the majority decision affirmed that we all have these rights, because we can pool our resources to do these expensive things.
ATS – there is zero chance that CU will get overturned. It now has a long list of progeny. Contra YOUR claim CU is a massive FREE SPEECH case.
It affirmed 250 years of first amendment decisions and got rid of some stupid laws from the 70’s
You can not infringe on speech through the back door. You can not say you are free to speak about whatever you wish – but only are 3am in the shower
CU makes it clear that you are allowed to buy and use a megaphone to fascilitate your speech. That govenrment nat not preclude you from speeking by restricting the funding that allows you to reach a greater audience.
You rant about Billionaires – Hillary Clinton spent 1.5B dollars losing the presidency – Trump spent less than 1B. Harris spend 1.5B in 100 days losing the presidency.
Both Hillary, and Biden and Harris received massive money from Billionaires – in fact this midterm is one of the first times ever that Republicans have had more money than democrats, and received more from Billionaires – though beleive me – Democrats have gotten massive amounts of money from Billionaires.
CU is what allows Billionaire Singman from the CCP to fund the no kings protests, and the anti-ice protests – which would completely fizzel without him.
Democrats have been the major beneficiaries of CU – not republicans.
John, on the contrary, had Citizens United gone the other way billionaires would still be free to publish newspapers and books, make movies, and use other expensive and effective means of getting their message to the voters, whereas individuals of lesser means could not, because the only practical way to do so is by forming a corporation. So it was actually an anti-billionaires decision.
“ATS – there is zero chance that CU will get overturned. It now has a long list of progeny. Contra YOUR claim CU is a massive FREE SPEECH case.”
Probably true, but there is a way to bypass it according to “The Montana Plan” (Initiative I-194), which stops corporate election spending by targeting corporate powers rather than corporate rights.
The legal mechanism, spearheaded by the Transparent Election Initiative and former political practices commissioner Jeff Morgan, relies on a basic rule of corporate law: corporations are “artificial persons” created entirely by state governments.
The Supreme Court ruled that corporations have a First Amendment right to free speech, meaning the government cannot ban them from speaking.
But…
A corporation can only execute actions that its state-issued charter legally permits it to do. Montana Initiative I-194 amends the law to state that Montana will completely omit the power to spend money on elections from the charters it grants.
Because states have absolute authority to define, limit, or revoke the operational powers of the entities they create, they can legally choose not to give corporations the structural ability to spend money on campaigns. A corporation cannot exercise a First Amendment “right” to spend money if it does not possess the foundational corporate “power” to write the check in the first place.
If an entity violates the restriction and spends money on an election, the state does not charge them with a free-speech crime. Instead, the corporation automatically forfeits its charter privileges and its legal right to do business or own land
within the state.
By framing the issue as a matter of state regulatory authority over corporate business charters rather than a restriction on political speech, the strategy successfully works around Citizens United without requiring a constitutional amendment.
X, this is clearly lifted, copied, and pasted text. Please cite and link your source, as any professional plagiarist knows how to do.
John Say,
In Citizens United v. FEC (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that political spending is protected speech under the First Amendment, meaning the government cannot restrict a corporation’s independent expenditures. However, scholars defending I-194 argue that Citizens United only protects the speech rights of an entity that possesses the power to spend.
If Montana strips the underlying corporate power to expend funds on elections as a condition of its state-granted charter, the entity legally lacks the capacity to engage in that transaction in the first place.
The core defense rests on the premise that corporations are “artificial persons” created strictly by state law. Under the Tenth Amendment, powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states. Legal experts and initiative leaders—such as former Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan—argue that states have never surrendered their foundational authority to define the scope of corporate charters.
Instead of banning corporate “speech” out of thin air, I-194 acts as a statutory clarification establishing that political spending is simply not a lawful corporate power granted by the State of Montana.
Pure genius.
McConnell’s block of Merrick Garland’s nomination was a disgraceful hole punched in the Constitution to block the POTUS’s nomination power. The fact that no one could legally block a Senate exercise of its own rules as it saw fit is not a defense.
Brown should be advocating a constitutional amendment to fill in this loophole. In the meantime, he is making himself the defender of an anti-democratic and corrupt 2-party system that is actively self-immolating.
I’m the one who wrote the comment below about Garland – and I happen to agree with you 100%. My point was only to highlight how Turley only referees one side of the field so as to not upset his readers or lose book sales. He’s not interested in telling the whole story – and whereas there was a time when you could trust him to give a more fair balanced appraisal of a story, that time has long since passed. He’s not about to bite the hand that feeds him.
It wasn’t a constitutional violation at all, nor was it disgraceful. Garland was left in peace and told he had to stay on the court of appeals for some months pending action by the subsequent Congress.
You don’t understand how your government works.
Obama was President. He ran the executive branch. Obama had the constitutional authority to nominate whoever he wanted to SCOTUS. And that’s exactly what he did.
McConnell did not “block” him from nominating Garland because he had absolutely no authority to do so.
However, as Senate Majority Leader McConnell had the authority to prioritize the Senate’s business. He chose not to prioritize holding confirmation hearings for Obama’s nominee. Not terribly surprising considering the President and the Senate Majority Leader had conflicting visions about who should be a SCOTUS justice.
Your problem is that you don’t like the separation of powers designed into the Constitution to preserve liberty.
McConnell invoked the Biden rule, that the people should have a say if a vacancy occurs in the middle of a presidential election year.
People who blocked so many GOP appellate judges under George W. Bush, and who gave us the pure evil spectacles of the Thomas and Kavanaugh hearings, have no standing to complain about McConnell’s use of the Biden rule. As an aside, the events that followed during Garland’s corrupt tenure as AG proved that McConnell did the country a huge favor, as Garland’s nefarious nature came into view for all to see.
McConnell invoked the Biden rule, that the people should have a say if a vacancy occurs in the middle of a presidential election year.
No, he didn’t. He never said there was any such rule. He merely pointed out that there was no precedent for a senate, in a presidential election year, considering a SCOTUS nomination made by a president of the opposite party. Of course if the president was from the same party as the senate majority then it would consider his nominations. Why wouldn’t it? Hence the senate did consider and consent to Amy Barrett’s nomination, right before a presidential election. But it has no obligation to do so, and there is no precedent for it doing so for an opposite-party president, so he wasn’t about to be the first majority leader to allow such a thing.
In other words, it’s not a “rule”, to be applied neutrally, it’s a completely legitimate political consideration, since this is a political process.
You note that a constitutional amendment is needed – BECAUSE WHAT MCCONNELL DID WAS CONSTITUTIONAL.
Please cite any instance in US history where the president and the party controlling the senate were different where and a president got to confirm a supreme court nominee in their last year ?
You can dislike what McConnell did – but democrats have done the same or similar and both parties would do exactly the same under the same circumstance.
And you or not getting a constitutional amendment – Neither republican senators nor democrats are going to pass a constitutional amendment to restrict their own power to interfere with presidential nominations.
That is garbage. The senate has no obligation to take up on its agenda a motion that it doesn’t support. Just because a president asks for the senate’s advice and consent to a nomination doesn’t mean it must give it. The senate majority is entitled to say we do not support this, so there’s no point in even discussing it. We have better things to do with our time, such as counting the tiles on the ceiling.
Actively searching the Turley archives for when he expressed similar outrage at how Republicans refused to have confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland which resulted in the SCOTUS being absent one member for 422 days – effectively packing it through absentia…..Darn – why can’t I find the post where this also infuriated him? Oh right, I keep forgetting. Turley’s a hypocrite.
I am sure you won’t consider it “similar outrage” but a search of Garland 2016 on this blog shows Turley twice saying that Garland deserved a hearing and a vote. Not hard to find.
In 2013 Reid eliminated the filibuster on judicial appointments to stuff the DC court of appeals.
That actually violated senate rules – what McConnell did, did not.
Reid was promissed he would regret removing the judicial fillibuster.
That is the most important factor in your claim that Republicans stacked the courts.
Leftist’s see Brown’s position and call it, “tolerance”. 🙄
Mr. Benisch doesn’t have to show the playbook. We see it every day.
It’s way past time to try for treason all democrats who align with their party’s secessionist platform. These people are either insane or evil, but either way, they cannot be a part of any governmental body in the US because they’re communists!
I had a dream that the Trump family was shot by firing squad, just like the Romanov family.
You are filled with evil–find an exorcist ASAP!
And you’re telling us about your dreams just why?
I thought that s@@tlibs like yourself were against the death penalty. Does this only apply to application of the death penalty for murderers? I have a feeling that you and others similarly situated would have no problem with the execution of anyone to the right of Lenin.
Help me out s@@tlibs? What did I miss?
antonio
@Anonymous
Yeah, smoking meth can have that effect. If you give it time, it’ll wear off.
You people are so full of hate, it’s unbelievable. You really need help.
I am old enough to remember when senators routinely voted for judges from the other party and different ideology as a matter of political integrity. For many decades, senators insisted that they were bound to vote for a nominee if they were qualified even if they disagreed with their liberal or conservative jurisprudential views.
==
The disposition you’re lauding applies in situations when the judiciary – and the appellate judiciary in particular – abstain from making use of bits of phraseology in the constitution to impose their preferred social policy. The inclination to do this has been quite asymmetrical, btw. Objections to it hardly arise from our law faculties anymore, which tells you something about the civic desirability of them.
Quote: pledging to “fire all Republicans” because “I just do like them.”
Good Lord, this essay really needs a proofreader. At least a dozen errors. That said, if a Supreme Court justice needs replacing, expect a Battle Royale.
Turley does use Grammarly, but it seems he’s not using it consistently. If he did, those grammatical errors wouldn’t be such an issue.
Why do you care ?
Honestly ? When you start attacking punctation and grammar on internet posts you are flying a giant flag that says “I got nothing else”
I think the West story is interesting and it is gathering a massive amount of attention – particularly on the right.
It confirms what MAGA thinks about many democrats.
But it is not otherwise consequential. It is fun. But it is not changing any election but Wests.
As to Brown – I am disturbed by what he is saying. I think it is a mistake to say that in what is now a red state like OH, But it is also not a new revalation. If Democrats take the senate – they are not confirming anyone for dog catcher. I do not think the brown remarks are a huge deal – because there is no voter with more than two braiun cells that does not already KNOW that with control of the senate stopping confirmations – particularly of Judges is the LEAST that democrats are going to do.
Further while I think it is a mistake politically – NOT because it is outside their power, NOT because it is unconstitutional or outside of norms, but because it is NOT what any outside of the far left want to hear and there are more voters in OH that will be turned off than will be turned on.
But whether Brown says this or not – it is going to happen if Democrats take the senate.
And it would atleast similarly happen if Republicans controlled the Senate with a Democrat president.
Democrats will slow walk or stall Trump judicial appointments specifically for the next 2 years if they get the senate. It is pretty close tot he ONLY meaningful impact they will have.
And Republicans would do the same if the situation was reversed.
But that is NOT what voters want to here.
YOU are here shilling for bi-partisanship.
PLEASE. Most of us are barfing soda through our noses laughing at the absurdity of that.
You want Bipartisanship – pass the SAVE act – 80% of the country wants it.
You want Bipartisanship – get behind deportations – 56% of the country wants EVERY illegal deported.
80% of the country wants every criminal illegal deported.
You want ICE to wear body-cams – fine got no problems with that.
You want them not to wear masks – fine put the same protections for federal law enforcement in place we have for supreme court justices. Go after an ICE agent off the job or their family and go to jail. They are wearing masks because you people are nuts and dangerous.
Regardless there are LOTS of things that supermajorities of americans want that should be easy to pass.
The impediment to that is DEMOCRATS. And it always has been.
Those of you on the left think bi-partisanship[ means Republicans voting for bills that no one in their right mind should be voting for that have no one supporting.
John Say, Turley is a distinguished constitutional lawyer. Being a lawyer and a prolific publisher making embarrassing grammatical errors. Chips away at his credibility and attention to detail that a lawyer supposedly requires. Because a grammatical error showing up in a court document can undermine an entire argument or case.
Trump lawyers have lost cases and credibility from grammar errors. It matters. Not to us simple folks. We are not expected to be accurate.
“You want Bipartisanship – pass the SAVE act – 80% of the country wants it.“
The SAVE does not HAVE 80% support. Support for proof-of-citizenship requirements is closer to 67% to 70%. That’s only among MAGA Republicans.
“At least a dozen errors.” —
is a fragment
Good Lord do you think anybody gives a holy crap about your complaint? Tell your therapist about it. Maybe you can get your Prozac dose increased
You should go to the learing center!