Supreme Court

Appeals court upholds key voting rights provision | Associated Press

May 182012

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, rejecting an Alabama county’s challenge to the landmark civil rights law. The provision requires state, county and local governments with a history of discrimination to obtain advance approval from the Justice Department, or from a federal court in Washington, for any changes to election procedures. It now applies to all or parts of 16 states. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that Congress developed extensive evidence of continuing racial discrimination just six years ago and reached a reasonable conclusion when it reauthorized section 5 of the law at that time. The appellate ruling could clear the way for the case to be appealed to the Supreme Court where Chief Justice John Roberts suggested in a 2009 opinion that the court’s conservative majority might be receptive to a challenge to section 5. Read More »

John Edwards trial: What will verdict mean for campaign finance? | CSMonitor.com

May 182012

In the end, it seems, the John Edwards trial became only a circus sideshow in America’s convulsive efforts to define the limits of campaign finance. The defense rested abruptly Wednesday without Mr. Edwards taking the stand, marking the end of a courtroom drama that had plenty of drama but little of what the prosecution had promised, analysts and observers say. Before the trial began, prosecuting attorney Lanny Breuer said the federal government won’t “permit candidates for high office to abuse their special ability to access the coffers of their political supporters to circumvent our election laws.” … To some, the prosecution has overreached in an attempt to net a big fish. Yet the broader context of the trial has also played no small part in stripping it of deeper meaning for the political world. Indeed, given the US Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United ruling in 2010, a candidate in a similar situation today would likely be able move such money to its target in an alternate, and legal, way. Read More »

State heading back to Supreme Court over voter ID law | New York Amsterdam News

Apr 272012

The state of Arizona wants the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the appeal by the federal government of a law that would allow them to practice their own enforcement regarding immigrants. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld Arizona’s requirement that voters show identification at the polls, but disallowed the requirement to show proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote in federal elections. Known as SB 1070, the law, if overturned by the court, would allow Arizona’s law enforcement officials to arrest and detain individuals who might be undocumented immigrants without any federal oversight or regard for federal priorities. Under the law, failure to comply with registration requirements would result in an inability to vote in elections. Read More »

Romney super PAC’s $400K gift among mysterious donations this election cycle | The Washington Post

Apr 252012

A once-mysterious $400,000 check written to a “super” political action committee supporting Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign rekindled a nagging question this election season: Just how much disclosure is enough to satisfy transparency? The Florida husband and wife behind the contribution were identified Monday as the beneficiaries of an investment fund and are among Romney’s top Florida fundraisers. But up until then, the donation to the Restore Our Future super PAC — which reported the contribution from an unknown Florida firm called SeaSpray Partners LLC — left more questions than answers. Inquiries about the donation intensified over the weekend after a Florida man who owned a similarly named company in Palm Beach told news organizations he never donated to the pro-Romney group. It turned out that Restore Our Future listed the wrong address for the actual SeaSpray donor. Read More »

How to beat Citizens United | E.J. Dionne/The Washington Post

Apr 232012

We are about to have the worst presidential campaign money can buy. The Supreme Court’s dreadful Citizens United decision and a somnolent Federal Election Commission will allow hundreds of millions of dollars from a small number of very wealthy people and interests to inundate our airwaves with often vicious advertisements for which no candidate will be accountable. One would like to think that the court will eventually admit the folly of its 2010 ruling and reverse it. But we can’t wait that long. And out of this dreary landscape, hope is blossoming in the state of New York. There’s irony here, since New York is where a lot of the big national money is coming from. No matter. The state is considering a campaign finance law that would repair some of the Citizens United damage, and in a way the Supreme Court wouldn’t be able to touch. Read More »

"Corporate Personhood" Is Not the Problem | Garret Epps/American Prospect

Apr 182012

American politics is in trouble. A tsunami of unaccountable, untraceable political money is overwhelming the Republican race for the presidential nomination and threatens to do the same to the fall election. For many people, especially progressives, the culprit is easy to name: the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which swept away any limits on election-advocacy ads by corporations, unions, and “independent” political-action committees (PACs) and issue groups. Many progressives believe that Citizens United “made corporations people” and that a constitutional amendment restricting “corporate personhood” will cure this political ill. Citizens United is a bad decision. This obvious fact may even be dawning on the Court’s conservative majority, which is taking a surprisingly leisurely look at American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock, in which the Montana Supreme Court directly challenged Citizens United, in essence telling the justices that they didn’t understand the first thing about politics. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, dissenters in Citizens United, have publicly stated that American Tradition may offer an opening to limit or even overturn the malign precedent. Read More »

Supreme Court agrees to consider corporate free speech post-Citizen United | UPI.com

Apr 092012

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider taking another bite of the corporate political free speech apple recently, accepting a petition asking justices to summarily overturn a Montana Supreme Court decision petitioners say flies in the face of Citizens United. Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission is the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision two years ago that basically negated campaign finance laws. In its ruling, the court said Congress shouldn’t be allowed to limit the amount corporations, unions and similar entities give to campaigns. In upholding a ban on corporate independent expenditures in state elections, the Montana Supreme Court determined that “unlike Citizens United, this case concerns Montana law, Montana elections and it arises from Montana history.” That ruling, the petition said, raises the question for the U.S. Supreme Court to consider: “Whether Montana is bound by the holding of Citizens United, that a ban on corporate independent political expenditures is a violation of the First Amendment, when the ban applies to state, rather than federal, elections.” Read More »

Attorneys General urge Congress to check corporate spending on elections | SouthCoastToday.com

Apr 052012

Concerned about unlimited contributions by corporations for political advertising, Attorney General Martha Coakley has submitted a formal letter to Congress urging an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to reverse the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The letter sent today to Congressional leadership was signed by AG Coakley and 10 other state Attorneys General. Read More »

Super PACs can be thwarted, even with ‘Citizens United’ | The Washington Post

Apr 052012

Here is the only good news about the super PACs flooding the 2012 presidential race with negative ads funded by huge contributions from the super rich: These vehicles for corruption can be eliminated. Congress can pass legislation to end these candidate-specific super PACs that is well within the bounds of Citizens United. The Supreme Court’s decision in the 2010 case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission paved the way for the creation of super PACs — federally registered political action committees that raise unlimited contributions and use these funds to make expenditures in federal elections. To legally spend these funds, the court said, outside groups must operate independently of the candidates they are supporting. The 2012 presidential campaign has brought us a particularly virulent form of these groups: the candidate-specific super PAC. If not made illegal, they will spread to congressional races as well. Read More »

The Virtues of the Super PAC | NYTimes.com

Apr 052012

With the Republican primary season winding down, it’s time to celebrate two heroes of participatory democracy, two champions of the ordinary voter, two men who did everything in their power to make the ballot box matter as much as the fundraising circuit. I speak, of course, of Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friess. Adelson is the casino billionaire whose super PAC donations enabled Newt Gingrich to upset Mitt Romney in South Carolina and give him a scare in Florida. Friess is the investment manager whose super PAC donations enabled Rick Santorum to prolong the race through February and March. Both men are controversial; both have been cited as prime examples of the corrupting influence of great wealth on our politics. But both did more than anyone else to prevent the Republican primary from turning into a straightforward “money talks” affair. Read More »

Don't Blame The Supreme Court For Citizens United -- Blame Congress, The FEC And The IRS | Huffington Post

Mar 262012

The two most controversial campaign financing practices of the post-Citizens United era aren’t actually the Supreme Court’s fault. The court’s conservative majority most certainly expected that its 2010 ruling, which granted First Amendment rights to corporations and equated money to speech, would unleash unprecedented amounts of political spending. But when people rail against Citizens United these days, they’re often complaining about two things in particular: the candidate-specific super PACs that implausibly claim to be independent of the candidates they’re backing, and the political slush funds that can accept unlimited secret donations by claiming to be issue-oriented nonprofits. Neither were inevitable byproducts of Citizens United — or a subsequent lower court ruling. They are things that could be fixed either legislatively, administratively, or both. But without a good shove, Congress, the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service all appear unlikely to pursue solutions. Read More »

Foreign Corporations, Non-profits and the Holding of Citizens United | Money, Politics and the Law

Mar 232012

Days after Citizens United v. FEC was decided, President Obama famously said at his 2010 State of the Union address that he believed the decision would “open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limits in our elections.” There may be loopholes which allow foreign corporations to donate through American entities, but not only arecorporations generally not funding super PACs, the ban on money accepted directly from foreign corporations appears to be being followed. Last month, Rick Santorum’s super PAC returned a $50,000 donation from such a corporation. The Internal Revenue Service has also said non-profit organizations under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (which applies to charitable organizations) are banned from contributing to super PACs. (In contrast, non-profit social welfare organizations organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Code may donate to political causes as long as that is not their main activity. Professor Rick Hasen has more on 501(c) non-profit donations after Citizens United) This ban from the IRS led to Mitt Romney’s super PACrefunding a $100,000 check from a 501(c)(3) charity. But here’s the important question from a legal standpoint: under the holding of Citizens United, should either of these bans be constitutional? Read More »

Montana Supreme Court leading the charge against Citizens United | State of Elections

Mar 222012

Last month the Supreme Court issued a stay on Montana’s Supreme Court decision upholding corporate spending limits in state elections. It seems that the Court may be ready to reexamine Citizens United. What they’ll find is what many states have been saying all along: Citizens United is out of sync with the values of many states. Montana was the first of many states to express disdain for unlimited corporate funding. Early last week 55 towns in Vermont passed resolutions proposing a constitutional amendment that would limit the rights of corporations. The Alabama legislature has also been seeking to stop PAC-to-PAC fund transfers that mask donors. Even some members of the Court seem eager to reexamine the effects of Citizens United. Read More »

Rules of the Game: Bad News for Nation’s Nonprofits | Roll Call

Mar 212012

In an election that until lately has been dominated by super PACs, politically active nonprofits are the new bad guys, drawing ethics complaints, letters to the IRS and legislative action. That is bad news for the nation’s 1.6 million nonprofits, which have much to lose as their sector gets dragged into political money controversies. For reform advocates, the problem with big-spending, secretive nonprofits is that they answer to no one and keep voters in the dark. But the worst damage inflicted by unrestricted, undisclosed campaign money could be on nonprofits themselves. “Charitable organizations depend on the confidence and trust of the public for support,” said Diana Aviv, president and CEO of Independent Sector, which represents the nonprofit and philanthropic community. Campaign spending by nonprofits, she added, could pose “a serious reputational risk” to the sector. Read More »

Could Corporations Take Tax Breaks on Political ‘Dark Money’? | ProPublica

Mar 202012

The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the way for unlimited corporate spending on politics and has led to the proliferation of nonprofit political groups that do not have to disclose the identities of their donors. But corporations may be getting another benefit from anonymous donations to these groups: a break on their taxes. It all starts with the so-called social welfare groups that have become bigger players in the political world in the wake of Citizens United, which knocked down restrictions on campaign activity by such groups. Tax experts say it’s possible that businesses are using an aggressive interpretation of the law to wring a tax advantage out of their donations to these groups. It’s almost impossible to know whether that’s happening, partly because the groups — also known by their IRS designation as 501(c)(4)s — aren’t required to disclose their donors. (That’s why the contributions have been dubbed “dark money.”) Read More »

Court fight inevitable for Minnesota voter ID | StarTribune.com

Mar 192012

Even if the Legislature approves the measure as a constitutional amendment, opponents vow to try and keep it off November ballot. The turmoil and contention surrounding voting rights and election integrity does not cease when a state adopts the type of photo ID requirement Minnesota is moving toward. It just moves into the courtrooms. Two Wisconsin district court judges blocked the state’s strict, new ID requirement this month, after just a single election. One judge said a government that limits the right to vote “imperils its legitimacy.” The state is appealing. In Texas and South Carolina, concerns dating back to the Civil Rights era have caused the federal government to block ID laws, fearing minority voters will be disenfranchised. Those states are appealing. Even Indiana and Georgia, two states with the longest history of using strict photo ID requirements, had to battle multiple legal challenges, culminating in a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the Indiana law as being in “the interest in deterring and detecting voter fraud.” Read More »

The Supreme Court and Citizens United, Take 2 | NYTimes.com

Mar 172012

The Supreme Court has an opportunity to reconsider its disastrous Citizens United decision. The justices should take it. The damaging effects of unlimited spending by corporations and unions on elections — honestly examined — should cause the court to overturn or, at the very least, limit that ruling. On Friday, the justices granted a stay of a Montana state court ruling that upheld a state anticorruption campaign finance law. The stay gives the parties in the Montana case time to file papers to seek Supreme Court review. In supporting the stay, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, “Montana’s experience, and experience elsewhere since this court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations ‘do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.’ ” She was quoting Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Citizens United, in which he claimed that expenditures might result in “influence over or access to elected officials” but would not “corrupt” them. Read More »

Judge indicates part of initiative on Montana Supreme Court elections invalid | The Missoulian

Mar 162012

A District Court judge indicated Wednesday that a portion of a Republican-backed ballot initiative, which many in the GOP hope will tilt Montana Supreme Court elections to their party’s favor, could be unconstitutional as alleged by critics. The Legislature last year sent the initiative directly to this June’s primary ballot. It establishes regional districts that would each elect one justice to the state’s high court. The court’s six justices and one chief justice are currently elected in statewide elections. Supporters argued that justices elected statewide favor Democrats and do not represent certain places, like the rural areas that generally favor Republicans. Opponents argued Wednesday in District Court in Helena that the proposal runs afoul of the Montana Constitution by adding qualification criteria for the judicial candidates. They are asking the courts to remove it from the ballot. Read More »

Federal judge says super PACs not bound by Illinois limits on contributions | chicagotribune.com

Mar 142012

Political action committees that act independently of a candidate are not bound by Illinois’ limits on campaign contributions aimed at curbing corruption, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. In a case brought by the abortion rights group Personal PAC, U.S. District Judge Marvin Aspen ruled the organization could create its own independent-expenditure PAC and take unlimited contributions. Aspen found that previous rulings by the U.S. Supreme Courtand the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago “prohibit governments from enforcing limiting contributions to independent-expenditure-only PACs.” Read More »

The Super PAC Paradox | Roll Call

Mar 122012

When GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum gave his victory speech in Missouri after the primary there on Feb. 7, he shared the stage with a white-haired gentleman who stood practically at his elbow the entire time.
Investment fund manager Foster Friess probably did not strike audience members as someone special as he smiled merrily behind the former Pennsylvania Senator. But Friess is at the center of a growing controversy over unregulated money and alleged campaign finance violations in the 2012 campaign. At issue is whether unrestricted super PACs are illegally working hand-in-hand with the candidates they support. Campaign finance watchdogs say the collusion is flagrant. Super PAC organizers argue just as loudly that they are meticulously following the rules. Read More »

Voting Rights Act: Is Obama letting the civil rights law die before the Supreme Court kills it? | Slate

Mar 022012

When Georgia’s Republican leaders redrew the state’s election-district maps last year, Democrats and minorities instantly cried foul. In an increasingly diverse state where 47 percent of voters chose Obama in 2008, the new maps looked likely to hand the GOP 10 of the state’s 14 seats in Congress. Perhaps even more significantly, they were drawn so as to give Republicans a shot at a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the state legislature, allowing them to pass constitutional amendments unilaterally. They achieved this in part by “packing” the state’s black voters (who overwhelmingly vote Democratic) into a handful of districts in order to make others more solidly white (and Republican).

Fortunately for the state’s Democrats, federal law seemed to offer a time-tested remedy. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark civil rights bill passed in 1965 to crack down on poll taxes and other discriminatory practices, requires Georgia and a number of other Southern states to get federal approval for any changes to their voting laws. Any that harmed minorities’ chances of fair representation were to be thrown out. And that’s exactly what Georgia Democrats expected Obama’s Department of Justice to do with Republicans’ new maps. Just two years earlier, it had invoked Section 5 to block two Georgia voter-verification laws. Liberals gleefully predicted the Republican gerrymanders would likewise be “DOA at the DOJ.”
Read More »

Undermining State Campaign Laws | NYTimes.com

Mar 012012

On Friday, a federal district judge granted a preliminary injunction against a Montana law, the Corrupt Practices Act of 1912, that bans corporations from making independent expenditures in political campaigns. Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court, in a separate case from the state courts, issued a temporary order preventing Montana from enforcing that law. These cases and others in the country show how the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has upended important state campaign spending laws. As the Montana Supreme Court has said on this question, “Clearly the impact of unlimited corporate donations creates a dominating impact on the political process and inevitably minimizes the impact of individual citizens.” Read More »

State Supreme Court hears election challenge to Charlie White | The Indianapolis Star

Mar 012012

The Indiana Supreme Court raised several questions about voter registration laws during a hearing Wednesday to determine if Charlie White was eligible to run for secretary of state in 2010. But those questions might not be enough for the state’s highest court to order White’s removal from the office. The Indiana Supreme Court has never ousted an elected official because of an election challenge. Supreme Court justices typically defer to voters, said Joel Schumm, a professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. It seems likely they will do so in this case, Schumm said, especially since White’s voting issues were well-publicized before the election, and he won by a large margin anyway. If the Supreme Court rules against White, the Democrat who lost to him by more than 300,000 votes in November 2010 could take office. Read More »

Cash and Carry: 20 members of the Forbes 400 have given an average of $1.65 million to candidate-specific super PACs - and it’s February | NYTimes.com

Feb 282012

If enacted, the tax proposals Mitt Romney outlined last week to the Detroit Economic Club would provide multimillion-dollar benefits to a newly powerful constituency: the rich men and women who are bankrolling “super PACs.” These policies — a 20 percent cut in marginal income tax rates; lowering the corporate tax to 25 percent; eliminating the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax; retaining the favorable 15 percent rate on capital gains — would warm the hearts and fatten the wallets of the six men who have given $1 million or more to Restore Our Future, Romney’s super PAC. The Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United, and a series of related cases, especially SpeechNow.org… v. Federal Election Commission, which was decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, have not just gutted campaign-finance reform. They have undermined the democratic character of the presidential nomination process by empowering the rich to exert disproportionate control over it. Read More »

Indiana Supreme Court Confronts Key Question in Disputed Elections: Now What? | Doug Chapin/PEEA

Feb 282012

Last week, an Indianapolis trial judge sentenced former Secretary of State Charlie White to one year of home detention after a jury convicted him of six felony counts related to his use of his ex-wife’s address as his voting address in the May 2010 election. While White has vowed to appeal, the felony convictions did bring an end to one argument – whether or not White could continue to serve as Secretary, which would have been possible had the judge agreed to reduce the sentence to a misdemeanor. A larger argument has emerged, however, and it is one to which other states and localities should pay attention in this era of razor-close elections: What happens when the law and/or the evidence shows the winner of an election is no longer the winner? That’s the question that the Indiana Supreme Court will take up soon as it is asked to resolved who should replace White as Secretary of State. Read More »

Judge blocks more election rules | Independent Record

Feb 272012

A federal judge on Friday blocked more Montana campaign finance laws amid an ongoing battle over political spending restrictions, and ruled that corporations are indeed allowed to donate to some political action committees. Montana officials are fighting multiple attacks aimed at undoing state restrictions. The legal battles follow a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United that grants free-speech rights to corporations. U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell struck down a state ban on knowingly false statements in political attacks in election materials, a law aimed at preventing misrepresentation of a state candidate’s record. He also blocked a requirement that political attacks disclose relevant voting records. The judge also makes clear that a ruling last week by the U.S. Supreme Court indeed allows corporate donations to political action committees that spend only on independent expenditures. The impact of that ruling was not immediately clear since Montana does not currently establish any PACs restricted from donating directly to individual candidates. Read More »

Do-Over Season - Is there really a chance that the Supreme Court might reconsider Citizens United? | NYTimes.com

Feb 242012

Is there really a chance that the Supreme Court might reconsider Citizens United? A week ago, I wouldn’t have thought so, and I still think it’s an extreme long shot. But a provocative statement last Friday by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer makes this crazy idea worth pondering – which is undoubtedly what the two justices intended. Their three sentences were attached to an order issued by the full court granting a stay in a case from Montana on the right of corporations to make independent political expenditures. We all know, from the Citizens United decision two years ago, that corporations have a robust First Amendment right to spend as much as they want on politics, a right they are exercising to the hilt in the current election season. Read More »

In Republican Race, a New Breed of Superdonor | NYTimes.com

Feb 222012

Last June, Harold C. Simmons, a wealthy Texas businessman, sent a $100,000 check to Americans for Rick Perry, a “super PAC” preparing for Mr. Perry’s entry into the presidential race. A few months later, he donated $1 million to a different pro-Perry group through his company. In December, as Mr. Perry’s fortunes waned, Mr. Simmons wrote another check, this one for $500,000, to Winning Our Future, a super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich. But Mr. Simmons was not done. In mid-January, as Mr. Gingrich was headed toward a victory in the South Carolina primary, Mr. Simmons wrote a $100,000 check to Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney. And toward the end of the month, as Restore Our Future used his money to help bludgeon Mr. Gingrich with attack ads in Florida, Mr. Simmons sent yet another $500,000 check to Mr. Gingrich’s super PAC. “He generally supports conservative Republican candidates,” said Chuck McDonald, a spokesman for Mr. Simmons. “I assume he was just trying to be helpful.” Read More »

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Root of Super PACs in the 2012 Election | Marlena Luhr/PolicyMic

Feb 222012

In 2010, the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee opened the door to unlimited corporate spending in federal elections. One part of the decision allowed corporations to create fundraising committees that are able to expressly advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate. Although the term was not used in the case, these committees are now commonly called “Super PACs.” The only qualifier for these committees is that there can be no coordination with the official campaign of the candidate they support. Of course, it’s ridiculous to believe that candidates are not coordinating with these large donors considering that their advertising and messaging is always perfectly fitting with the campaigns they support. On a philosophical level, the idea of candidates becoming even more dependent on wealthy donors for their campaigns than they already are is sickening. But even on a more practical level, one effect of this case is that corporations can now threaten public office holders with negative campaigning if favored issues are not made a priority. Read More »

Why Is the ACLU Helping the Richest Americans Buy Our Elections? | AlterNet

Feb 222012

The American Civil Liberties Union has earned its reputation as the nation’s foremost legal opponent of government censorship and defender of First Amendment political speech. But increasingly, this national organization with 500,000 members and a $70 million annual budget has another legacy—helping the wealthiest Americans and institutions spend unlimited sums on elections. This complex legacy follows a nearly four-decade history of filing briefs in the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, virtually all of them arguing that the door to censorship, via regulation of core political speech, must never be opened. But various forces in the courts, the political world, and inside the ACLU are converging that may prompt the ACLU’s national board to reexamine its hardened stance in a more nuanced light, just as it moderated its policy on public financing of elections soon after the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling. Read More »

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is ready to speak out on the danger of super PACs | Slate Magazine

Feb 212012

In 18 years on the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has written more than 200 opinions on a number of important topics, including major opinions on everything from copyright law to abortion rights to employment discrimination. But in the area of campaign finance, she’s authored only one inconsequential two-paragraph concurring opinion—in one of the Supreme Court’s recent cases striking down parts of the McCain-Feingold law—in which she distanced herself from a more far-reaching dissent of Justice Stevens. She’s been a reliable vote to uphold reasonable campaign-finance laws, but this has hardly been her signature issue. Last week, however, Justice Ginsburg issued a short statement that hinted she is ready to speak out more boldly. She, like many Americans, appears concerned with the rise of super PACs and the disturbing role money is playing in the 2012 campaign season since the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Citizens United v. FEC. Justice Ginsburg likely won’t have the votes to overturn Citizens United, but she soon will be in a position to expose the disingenuousness at the ruling’s core. Read More »

Two justices suggest Citizens United ruling should be reconsidered in Montana case | The Washington Post

Feb 202012

Two Supreme Court justices suggested Friday that the court reconsider its controversial 2010 decision that allowed unlimited corporate and union spending in elections. The suggestion came as the court blocked a Montana Supreme Court decision upholding a century-old ban on corporate campaign spending in the state. The Montana ruling seems squarely at odds with the court’s 5 to 4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allowed unlimited corporate spending. The U.S. Supreme Court majority had said such independent spending did not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. Read More »

U.S. Supreme Court blocks Montana ban on corporate election spending | Billings Gazette

Feb 202012

The U.S. Supreme Court late Friday temporarily stopped enforcement of the Montana Supreme Court’s ruling that restored Montana’s century-old ban on corporations making independent expenses in campaigns. The immediate effect of the decision is that for the first time in a century, corporations now can spend unlimited amounts of money in independent expenses on state and local political races in Montana. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy granted the request by American Tradition Partnership and two other groups to block the Montana Supreme Court’s Dec. 30 decision. Read More »

The Supreme Court, Citizens United II, and the November election | SCOTUSblog

Feb 202012

Yesterday, the Supreme Court became a significant issue in the 2012 presidential election. The Court did not take center stage by deciding the constitutional challenges we are watching most closely: the cases involving the health care reform statute, Arizona’s S.B. 1070 immigration law, or the upcoming dispute on California’s Proposition 8 on gay marriage. Instead, it signaled that the November election itself may coincide with an argument over whether to overrule the single decision that the Obama Administration believes it can run against: Citizens United v. FEC. The case now before the Court is a challenge to a Montana statute that bans corporate spending in state elections. That law seems to be in the teeth of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, which held that uncoordinated corporate and union spending is protected by the First Amendment. The Montana Supreme Court nonethelessupheld the statute on the ground that it “concerns Montana law, Montana elections and it arises from Montana history.” Read More »

Judge hears arguments to lift Montana’s campaign finance laws | Montana Watchdog

Feb 182012

A federal judge debated with attorneys Thursday on whether he could overrule a decision by the Montana Supreme Court regarding Montana’s campaign finance laws, even if that decision was in violation of a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. District Court Judge Charles C. Lovell said he would rule within days on the request for a preliminary injunction, but cited “res adjutica” throughout the hearing, meaning the matter had already been decided by the Montana justices. “What the Montana court held here is binding on this case,” he told the plaintiffs’ attorney, Noel Johnson, but later said he likely would not have ruled the way the Montana justices did. Johnson noted the Montana Supreme Court ruling was in contradiction to findings 2010 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission. Read More »

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Supreme Court

Appeals court upholds key voting rights provision | Associated Press

John Edwards trial: What will verdict mean for campaign finance? | CSMonitor.com

State heading back to Supreme Court over voter ID law | New York Amsterdam News

Romney super PAC’s $400K gift among mysterious donations this election cycle | The Washington Post

How to beat Citizens United | E.J. Dionne/The Washington Post

"Corporate Personhood" Is Not the Problem | Garret Epps/American Prospect

Supreme Court agrees to consider corporate free speech post-Citizen United | UPI.com

Attorneys General urge Congress to check corporate spending on elections | SouthCoastToday.com

Super PACs can be thwarted, even with ‘Citizens United’ | The Washington Post

The Virtues of the Super PAC | NYTimes.com

Don't Blame The Supreme Court For Citizens United -- Blame Congress, The FEC And The IRS | Huffington Post

Foreign Corporations, Non-profits and the Holding of Citizens United | Money, Politics and the Law

Montana Supreme Court leading the charge against Citizens United | State of Elections

Rules of the Game: Bad News for Nation’s Nonprofits | Roll Call

Could Corporations Take Tax Breaks on Political ‘Dark Money’? | ProPublica

Court fight inevitable for Minnesota voter ID | StarTribune.com

The Supreme Court and Citizens United, Take 2 | NYTimes.com

Judge indicates part of initiative on Montana Supreme Court elections invalid | The Missoulian

Federal judge says super PACs not bound by Illinois limits on contributions | chicagotribune.com

The Super PAC Paradox | Roll Call

Voting Rights Act: Is Obama letting the civil rights law die before the Supreme Court kills it? | Slate

Undermining State Campaign Laws | NYTimes.com

State Supreme Court hears election challenge to Charlie White | The Indianapolis Star

Cash and Carry: 20 members of the Forbes 400 have given an average of $1.65 million to candidate-specific super PACs - and it’s February | NYTimes.com

Indiana Supreme Court Confronts Key Question in Disputed Elections: Now What? | Doug Chapin/PEEA

Judge blocks more election rules | Independent Record

Do-Over Season - Is there really a chance that the Supreme Court might reconsider Citizens United? | NYTimes.com

In Republican Race, a New Breed of Superdonor | NYTimes.com

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Root of Super PACs in the 2012 Election | Marlena Luhr/PolicyMic

Why Is the ACLU Helping the Richest Americans Buy Our Elections? | AlterNet

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is ready to speak out on the danger of super PACs | Slate Magazine

Two justices suggest Citizens United ruling should be reconsidered in Montana case | The Washington Post

U.S. Supreme Court blocks Montana ban on corporate election spending | Billings Gazette

The Supreme Court, Citizens United II, and the November election | SCOTUSblog

Judge hears arguments to lift Montana’s campaign finance laws | Montana Watchdog

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