The Success of SpeechNow
This morning the United States Supreme Court refused to consider the appeal in the case of SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission. That’s a shame.
I have written before about the SpeechNow case. Here’s a brief summary of the issues. The judiciary has long held that individuals could spend as much as they wished on elections. The traditional rationale for restricting spending — preventing corruption of the political process — did not apply to spending by individuals. If that is true, the SpeechNow plaintiffs wondered why individuals joined in a group (and independent of the candidates and parties) should not have the same freedom from restrictions.
It turned out, thanks to Citizens United, that individuals did have that right to be free of limits on campaign spending as recognized by a federal court. That same court maintained, however, that the associated individuals still had to register with the Federal Election Commission as a “political committee.” The paperwork and related rules complicate and discourage participating in politics. By refusing to hear SpeechNow’s appeal, the Supreme Court has decided that these associations must register with the government before engaging in politics.
Nonetheless, the SpeechNow plaintiff deserve our thanks. They have gotten a lot more than “half a loaf” out of their effort. True, the government is still too involved in electoral speech, but the limits on political speech and association have been invalidated. That is a real achievement and more evidence that the long era of restrictions on campaign finance is drawing to a close.
Supreme Court Ruling on Hillary Movie Heralds Freer Speech for All of Us
Today the Supreme Court struck a major blow for free speech by correctly holding that government cannot try to “level the political playing field” by banning corporations from making independent campaign expenditures on films, books, or even campaign signs.
As Justice Kennedy said in announcing the opinion, “if the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits jailing citizens for engaging in political speech.”
While the Court has long upheld campaign finance regulations as a way to prevent corruption in elections, it has also repeated that equalizing speech is never a valid government interest.
After all, to make campaign spending equal, the government would have to prevent some people or groups from spending less than they wished. That is directly contrary to protecting speech from government restraint, which is ultimately the heart of American conceptions about the freedom of speech.
No case demonstrates this idea better than Citizens United, where a nonprofit corporation made no donations to candidates but rather spent money to spread its ideas about Hillary Clinton independent of the campaigns of primary opponent Barack Obama, potential general election opponent John McCain, or any other candidates. Where is the “corruption” if the campaign(s) being supported have no knowledge, let alone control over what independent actors do? — be they one person, two people, or a large group?
Today’s ruling may well lead to more corporate and union election spending, but none of this money will go directly to candidates — so there is no possible corruption or even “appearance of corruption.” It will go instead to spreading information about candidates and issues. Such increases in spending should be welcome because studies have shown that more spending — more political communication — leads to better-informed voters.
In short, the Citizens United decision has strengthened both the First Amendment and American democracy.
For more background on the case, here’s a primer:
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