Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)

Citizens United

Decision: 5-4 in favor of...

Defendant

Plaintiff

v. Federal Election Commission

2010

What was is?

Citizens United wanted to have their feature-lenth anti-Hillary Clinton documentary film called "Hillary: The Movie" not regulated by the FEC through the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). The constitutional issue involved was that of the First Amendment's given right to free speech- more specifically, free political speech. In order to arrive at a decision, the Supreme Court had to interpret various sections of the BCRA and determine if they conflicted with the Constitution when applied to Citizens United's "Hillary: The Movie".

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy

(Author of the majority opinion)

Justice John Paul Stevens

(Author of dissenting opinion)

What did they say about it?

The Supreme Court ruled, in a 5-to-4 vote, that the First Amendment protected the right of an independant corporation to fund their own political boradcasts and not be limited in doing so.

Majority Opinon's Reasoning

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer

Dissenting Opinon's Reasoning

Political speech should not be limited in order to be true to the principles of democracy; this includes political speech coming from corporations.

Corporations are not members of society, and have access to vastly more money than most citizens. Because of this, allowing corporations to be unlimited in thier political speech would corrupt the election system based on the principles of democracy.

Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

What happened because of this?

Justice Antonin Scalia

Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Justice Clarence Thomas

The immediate effects of the court's decision had to do with the governmental reglation, or lackthereof, of political speech made by corporations and other 'big bank account' groups; the government no longer could limit corporations' funding of political advertisements, no matter what form they took. President Obama was strongly opposed to the Court's majority opinion, and made that clear in his State of the Union speech soon after the Court voted, saying that the ruling "reversed a century of law." This decision set the precedent that spending for political speech cannot be limited no matter if the spending is done by a private citizen or by a multi-million dollar company or union. Laws in 24 states were made open to challenge by this decision.

My Opinion

How is this case important now?

I think that the Supreme Court majority judged poorly in this case because corporations have access to much more money than do most regular citizens concerned about the goings on of the political realm. In principle, their decision makes sense, since corporations are controlled by citizens, and a citizen-run/controlled government is important to a democratic society, but in reality, I think that there needs to be at least a little bit of refferee-action coming from the law so that the 'little guy' is not drowned out by giant corporations with truckloads of money. In the words of Republican Congressman Dan Lungren, "[t]hey are auctioning off pieces of the First Amendment with this bill".

This case opened the metaphorical door to unlimited spending by corporations and unions for political speech. If this case had not been decided the way it was, the Court's previous rulings on the subject would still be in effect, and the government could regulate more of this type of spending. As it is now, the government has effectively told itself to loosen its regulation (abandoning it in some areas) of political speech.