Associated Press
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, fresh off his widely-derided political antics towards the end of the court's last session, sat down for a rare television interview last night. CNN's Piers Morgan asked the far-right jurist about the Citizens United ruling, and Scalia said there's nothing wrong with unlimited campaign spending, so long as there's disclosure.
"I think Thomas Jefferson would have said the more speech, the better," the high court justice said. "That's what the First Amendment is all about -- so long as the people know where the speech is coming from."
Adam Serwer noticed the trouble with this.
Scalia has expressed similar sentiments before, most notably in a 2010 case where anti-gay rights advocates in Washington State were attempting to block disclosure of signatories to a petition on the grounds that compelling them to do so violated their First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court disagreed, and in a concurring opinion Scalia wrote that "There are laws against threats and intimidation; and harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance." [...]
Nevertheless ... once in favor of disclosure in political spending, post-Citizens United GOP elected officials have fought tooth and nail to protect the identity of secret donors trying to influence American elections, most recently by blocking the DISCLOSE Act. They have embraced the Sarah Palin interpretation of the First Amendment: that the Constitution envisions not just freedom of speech but freedom from criticism.
Quite right. For years, whenever campaign-finance reform came up, Republican policymakers tended to seek two policies: unlimited donations and public disclosure. Sunshine, the GOP said, would solve any potential problems. Scalia, as of last night, still believes this.
But his party does not. The principle of disclosure that stood as the backbone of the Republican approach has since been rejected because, as Mitch McConnell and others see it, we must protect would-be donors from "intimidation" and "criticism." They still want to make it easy for rich donors to buy elections, but GOP leaders no longer like mechanisms that allow accountability.
Republicans have relied on Scalia to help clear the way for this new campaign-finance landscape, but they're ignoring the principle that even he still believes in.
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Scalia at odds with Ann Romney? Say it isn't so. I guess he's one of "you people."
Do I smell test cases after the 2012 elections. Folks: collect evidence of corruption or the appearance of corruption of our electoral system.
Wait. That pesky phone is always ringing around dinner or breakfast....
I just got off the phone with a charming telemarketer from India who was fund raising for a political candidate. Does that count? I suppose if true that would merely be the second ring of Scalia hell where perversity and irony reigns.
.
Corruption is the next level after that.
Republicans = Supreme Hypocrisy
If Scalia is in favor of disclosure, why was it not included in the Citizen's United ruling? I am sure it is not too late for SCOTUS to revisit the case and amend it.
I suspect it wasn't included in the ruling because it wasn't part of the regulation under consideration.
dkm,
Neither was the actual ruling.
It was judicial activism, in a way I've never seen before, to decide on an issue that was not brought before the US Supreme Court.
SCOTUS took a narrow ruling on a remote aspect of campaign-finance law and turned it into a fairly obscure case about campaign-finance reform into a battle over government censorship.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/21/120521fa_fact_toobin#ixzz215xPG0Mx
The decision rewrote decades of constitutional law in a case where the lawyer had not even raised those issues decided on.
The intersection of two really noxious doctrines--that money equals speech, and that corporations are people--has created a toxic political situation.
I'm still amazed that anyone well educated enough to sit on the Supreme Court would be dumb enough to equate "speech" with "money." Everyone is entitled to all of the free speech that can come out of his or her mouthand fingertips. Not somebody else's, which is what we have with the current system.
I'm even more amazed that any SC justice would extend "corporate personhood" beyond the legal necessities prompting that artificial construct in the first place: access to the courts and contractual standing.
At present, we do not have equality of freedom of speech, which should be an important element of the First Amendment. I doubt that the framers of the Constitution intended that the very wealthy should have LOTS MORE free speech than the very poor. (They'll always have somewhat more.)
The Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson are making a wonderful case for very strict limits (at very low levels) on campaign contributions.
"The more speech the better" is one of these stupidities that somehow gets accepted as true without any serious thought. That CorrectThought requires some serious qualifications.
Are we really better off and more informed now that we have all this raging "speech" from the right wing Noise Machine? Now that we have a 1000 channels and a million mediocre pundits to listen to. Seriously? Seems to me we just get to listen to that many more ignoramuses who, if they had any modesty and self-respect, wouldn't be talking at all. You can choose 100 suspects off the top of your head that we'd be better off without.
When 80% of the political "speech" is coming from approximately 180 mega millionaires and billionaires and is nothing more than specious and lying dumba$$ political ads that a 4th grader can see through, is that the genius Scalia is referring to?
Good God, America is really up against it.
you nailed it with the 1000 channels. no wonder we have all of this f**king crap on the news - the 24/7 news channels have to make sh*t up to fill up the time, and faux news is the result. i just wish there was some way to figure out how to get these people to stop lying - there oughta be a law!
Disgusted...,
While those on the right (except for a fringe of genuinely disturbed people) have to know full well that their "arguments" are bullpucky, I'm also convinced that there are Americans who have a truly religious faith in the magic of absolute "freedom of speech". Some years ago a Canadian whose name I forget said "In Canada we respect freedom of expression, but we don't worship it" (or words very close to that). In the US, there are too many people who, in effect, worship "freedom of speech". They seem to be incapable of recognizing that any constitution is only as good as the people who interpret and enforce it. If people like Scalia are the only ones interpreting and enforcing it, then there will be no way to delay that trouble coming every day.
I gather that at the moment, Mr. Scalia supports the principle that speech should be acknowledged, but anyone want to bet that if a case ever gets to the SC where one side is arguing that donors need to be identified and the right wing is arguing that they need to be hidden, Scalia is going to find some way to contort the law into protection for the right wing? He did it with the Commerce clause in the ACA case; he did it with Lily Ledbetter, so why wouldn't he do it again?
The more speech, the better, sure. But would Jefferson have agreed that money is speech?
It's really bogus to say money is speech, though. Equal is equal, so not everyone has the same amount of speech.
At least Scalia is not saying corps should be able to donate in secret as well as unlimited amounts. But, come on… money is not speech and corps are not people.
But, if the foreign company that competes with U.S. based company donates, then we just shrug and say "well, it's legal" to shoot our own feet because I needed their money so the corp could close our factories. Say … Genie garage door openers in Ohio or GM in Michigan.
Look what's happening in England:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1282297/Jaguar-Land-Rover-announces-production-China-India-British-factory-faces-axe.html
First the Brits buy it from Ford, right? We going to just allow all our manufacturing to go to India and China because business is better for whom?
Italian Fiat bought Chrysler, but the same thing? Closing plants?
Corps seem to be enamored with sending our money and economy overseas, along with jobs. And we wonder why our economy is slower these days?
Oh, and my garage door opener went on the fritz after 19 years, so I replaced the made in U.S.A. Genie with a made in U.S.A. Genie. It works great, nearly silent belt drive.
The other "multinational" brand (based and assembled where?) was about the same price.
Fighting disclosure laws is foolish. Republicans will not always control Congress and Dems are very likely to pass a disclosure law. If Republicans do not agree to some bipartisan legislation, then they are inviting Dems to write a law which will be far worse than one that is negotiated and passed. Such a law will be proposed if Dems win Congress and the White House and Republicans will be powerless to stop it if Reid changes the rules on filibusters.