What is insane to me are people who agree with Brown but disagree with Citizens United. A political movie isn't free speech, but Grand Theft Auto is?!
I think the point of this law was to control the effect of money on politics. If these independent expenditures (IEs) were restricted, then campaign spending would be done through the campaign.
Campaign donation limits would further decrease the influence of the wealthy and organizations on elections. Again, these limits exist specifically for this purpose.
These laws just dealt with the obvious: money has a huge influence on how much speech you have, and the only way to make speech more equal is to put restrictions on how much money you're allowed to spend on speech. The laws were limited to political speech during elections.
Furthermore, there is a distinction between personal and commercial speech and election speech, and election speech is more tightly regulated, and always has been. Our system is supposed to be one-person-one-vote, and likewise, the restrictions on speech are used to try and achieve one-person-one-voice in elections.
Citizens United was a bad decision because it extended the general personal free speech rights to election-related speech by corporations, associations, and unions.
It's led to the creation of associations that accept donations, and then produced electioneering materials and buy media as IEs.
I work for the AFL-CIO union, and the leaders at the national level happen to think that Citizens United was a bad decision, as well. They've issued statements about it.
To me, the common thread is that they all come down on the side of greater freedom of expression and freedom to take actions consistent with beliefs. But both the Citizens United and Hobby Lobby decisions are anathema in circles such as many tech communities. I suspect a lot has to do with personal disagreement with the beliefs of the organizations involved even though the discussion often gets reframed. Around catchphrases like "corporate personhood" in the case of Citizens United.
That's a funny one to listen for: people who think that Citizens United had anything to do with corporate personhood.
(Not sure you were saying otherwise.)
As a soundbite, it's such a red herring anyway. Of course corporations act like individuals in some ways (and not in others). Corporate entities can enter into contracts that aren't tied to a particular employee. They generally have freedom of speech. But they can't be put into prison (except metaphorically.)
The District Court determined that the movie itself was "electioneering communication":
> After viewing The Movie and examining the 73-page script at length, the court finds Mr. Morris's description to be accurate. The Movie is susceptible of no other interpretation than to inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office, that the United States would be a dangerous place in a President Hillary Clinton world, and that viewers should vote against her.[12] The 280*280 Movie is thus the functional equivalent of express advocacy. See WRTL, 127 S.Ct. at 2667 (setting out the "functional equivalent" standard). As such, it falls within the holding of McConnell sustaining, as against the First Amendment, § 203 insofar as it bars corporations from funding electioneering communications that constitute the functional equivalent of express advocacy.
This essentially prevented the group from airing the movie on television within 30 days of the Democratic Primary (i.e. the very period during which one might want to air a movie advocating for or against a candidate!) The group would have faced civil and criminal penalties for airing the movie.
And you've just gotten to the heart of why it's different from Brown. Money corrupts politics and threatens democracy. There is no such problem with violent video games.
If you think it's "insane" that we make this distinction, all I can say is that I think you're insane for not making it.
If money is like cooties, in that it ruins everything it touches, no matter what actual role it plays in the situation, then everything in this world is screwed up forever. But, that's not the case. The real problem with money in politics is the corruption of political, regulatory, administrative, and legislative decisions. When you fixate on stupid shit like some movie some dudes made, that idiocy is quite useful for those who benefit by that corruption.
Exactly. People vastly misunderstand Citizens United.
Fox News is Rupert Murdoch buying airtime in bulk for his political speech. Unless you propose to shut it down along with every other privately owned media company, money is speech.
Put another way, the CU decision argued that individuals do not give up their right to free expressions just because they decided to pool their money in a particular way.
The speech CU engaged in implicates practical problems violent video games do not. The question has never been one of worth. If it were, I'd have a long list of people I'd like locked up, starting with all politicians and lawyers.
(I'm very confused as to how you came to this conclusion, by the way, and would appreciate an explanation. That it's a matter of what "deserves" protection is exactly the idea the comment you replied to sought to dismiss, so somehow you've interpreted my statements exactly backwards.)
- "time, place, and manner" restrictions such as not yelling at 4 AM in a residential area (these must withstand what's called "immediate scrutiny", which basically says that the restrictions must be content neutral, narrowly tailored to serve a specific government interest, and leave ample opportunity to share outside of the specific circumstances)
- "content" restrictions, such as restrictions on direct threats or child porn. These must pass strict scrutiny (narrowly tailored, serve a specific government interest, and be the least restrictive means to serve that interest.)
The government's interest has never been in "remedying" the problem of people speaking about politics, regardless of money (it does have an interest in stopping bribery, but that's a different issue.) Indeed, Kennedy's majority opinion in Citizens United is quite direct about wanting to allow more people to speak about politics -- specifically, allowing associations of people (ie, corporations, unions, etc.) the same ability to speak that single wealthy individuals have. The alternative to CU is frightening -- the only people whose political messages could be heard would be the few with the money to own media companies, or the few with the social networking apparatus to create faux-viral content.
This parallels older supreme court decisions such as:
Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819)
Providence Bank v. Billings, 29 U.S. 514 (1830)
Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886)
United States v. United Auto Workers, 352 U.S. 567 (1957)
In my opinion, restrictions on electioneering spending do pass strict scrutiny.
> The government's interest has never been in "remedying" the problem of people speaking about politics, regardless of money
Money is all that is at issue here. Like many others, I categorically reject the notion that money is speech, and have done so for a very long time in the face of far more detailed and principled arguments to the contrary than have been presented in this thread.
> (it does have an interest in stopping bribery, but that's a different issue.)
Bribery is not a different issue -- campaign contributions, direct or not, are bribery.
> allowing associations of people
I will never consider "associations" that shield their members/owners from personal liability to be entitled to speak or do anything else without the permission of society.
The alternative to CU is not frightening. The alternative to CU is recognition of the obvious: Limited liability entities are not entitled to any rights, political campaigns should be publicly funded, and individual spending on electioneering should be strictly limited.
Notice I keep saying "electioneering", not "politics", because the conduct at issue is expenditure of money on electioneering, not speaking about or spending money on politics in general. This is just one example of the vast disconnect in evidence here.
People can judge the message by the speaker. When billionaiare Meg Whitman ran for office, her ads were on every single commercial break. She still lost. People saw through her.
When you have a multitude of associations, you can't tell who is saying what, and it creates confusion.