The Dissenting Opinion

Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission

Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission is a case of corporate and campaign finance law dealing with regulation of spending by organizations in the political campaigns. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled (5-4) on the laws averting unions and corporations from spending their treasury assets for independent political promotion violated the freedom of communication assured by the First Amendment. Thus, the court overturned Section 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002. Moreover, the court also overturned some parts of two previous Supreme Court rulings which are McConnell versus the Federal Election Commission (2003) as well as the Austin versus the Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) (Duignan, 2018).

The Case Emerged in 2008

The case emerged in 2008 when a conformist nonprofit organization known as Citizens United released a film named “Hillary” which was highly dire of Senator Hillary Clinton. In 2008, Hillary Clinton was an aspirant for the Democratic primary nomination for the president of the U.S. Citizens United desired to distribute the movie using the video-on-demand services to the subscribers of cable television in 30 days beforehand the Democratic primary nominations. Citizens United aimed to promote the documentary in three twisted television advertisements. However, the BCRA had extended the scope of Federal Election Campaign Act’s prohibition on union and corporate expenses and contributions concerning political polls to include electioneering communications that are paid by corporate treasury resources. Section 203 described ”electioneering communications” as a satellite, cable, or broadcast communication that denotes to a particular contestant for Federal position made within 60 days prior to the general poll. Both Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) and Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) did not ban unions and corporations from engaging in electioneering communications.

Citizens United Pursued a Sanction

Citizens United pursued a sanction in the U.S District Court after expecting that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) would inflict fines. Citizens United supposed that Section 203 was unconstitutional when it was applied to Hillary since the documentary did not match the explanation of electioneering communication. This is because it failed to establish advocacy for an aspirant as required by the decision of the court in the incident of Federal Election Commission versus the Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2007). Furthermore, Citizens United claimed that provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act demanding the filing of confession statements as well as the identification of benefactors of poll-associated marketing were unconstitutional as used in the documentary (Liptak, 2010).

The Majority Opinion

A writ of certiorari was granted by the Supreme Court after the district court ruled against Citizens United. On March 2009, the oral opinions were first heard, and the court demanded parties to file supplemental briefs basing on the question if some parts of McConnell and Austin confirmed the validity of section 203 should be reversed. The majority opinion of the court held that section 441 (b) was unconstitutional and both the relevant part of McConnell and Austin were overruled. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in a special hearing in the summer recess of the court. Besides, the Supreme Court claimed that it was not possible to decide the case on a narrower basis in a conspiracy with its opinion holding that United Citizens has a right to speak on this matter. The arguments of Citizens United could not be sustained in the fair proceedings of the statute, and there was no fair way to eliminate them from the board without causing a chilling effect. Section 441(b) allowed the government to allocate different rights to free speech to not the same speakers depending on their identities as companies or individuals. The idea was however overruled in the decisions of the court. Furthermore, the court held that the interests of the court to fight corruption by compelling were not fully served in section 441(b) since the independent expenses that were forbidden were defined and not harmonized by a campaign, thus, could not lead to a quid pro quo where votes were obtained in exchange for money (Duignan, 2018).

Dissenting Opinion

Justice John Paul Stephens, in his emotional and lengthy disagreement, warned that the ruling of the court was a threat that would undermine the truthfulness of the institutions that had been elected in the Country. He resisted that the court had deliberately ignored precedent and the standard of stare decisis. He also overruled the rationale of the court for allowing for the constitutionality of Section 441(b). To him, the majority had also misinterpreted the state securities that Section 441(b) as well as Section 203 were aimed to assist. Additionally, he viewed how the court treated political corruption as equal to a quid pro quo as a form of naivety and simplicity. The democracy of companies also gave more than enough powers to the shareholders voting rights and resulted in secondary suites among the officers in the corporates. The opinion of the majority ruling about disclosing and identifying the requirements of the BCRA was in agreement with Stephen’s belief and was linked by Justices Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, as well as Ruth Ginsburg. SpeechNOW appealed for the identification and disclosure part of the ruling of the court of appeal but the Supreme Court refused to listen to the case. A critical outcome of the SpeechNOW judgment was the rise of great ideologically motivated ”Super PACs” where well-off people could contribute limitlessly. The sum of expenditure by these groups during the period of election between 2010 and 2016 improved from sixty-two million dollars to more than one billion dollars (Levitt, 2010).

Ramifications on the Branches of Government

President Obama was still in government when the ruling was passed. He was among the people who criticized the changes that were made by the court. In his critic after the ruling, he argued in his state of Union speech that the decision would open the floodgates where special interest groups would spend limitlessly during elections because the court allowed the use of money from individuals and corporates to finance elections. He feared that the money would not be used appropriately and would corrupt the true feelings of the voters who would be lured into voting for a particular candidate in exchange for the money. Additionally, the ruling would, in the long run, result in the rewriting of the finance laws that governed the election period.

The Judiciary also responded to the reaction of President Obama regarding the ruling. Justice Samuel Alito who was in attendance reacted by disagreeing with President Obama stating that the allegations were untrue. He was therefore in favor of the verdict as it provided for the freedom of speech. Besides Justice Samuel Alito explained the appropriateness of the ruling stating its benefits to the election period (Teachout, 2010).

References

Brian Duignan. (2018). Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission LAW CASE https://www.britannica.com/event/Citizens-United-v-Federal-Election-Commission

Levitt, J. (2010). Confronting the impact of Citizens United. Yale L. & Pol’y Rev., 29, 217.

Liptak, A. (2010). Justices, 5-4, reject corporate spending limit. New York Times, 21.

Teachout, Z. (2010). Facts in Exile: Corruption and Abstraction in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Loy. U. Chi. LJ, 42, 295.