<p>Not surprisingly, Wesleyan has a lot of heavy-hitters in the labor field, among them, former “Car Czar”, Ron Bloom and Steven Greenhouse, the Labor correspondent for the New York Times. Steve had an interesting take on Citizens United, just a couple of weeks ago:
<a href=“A Campaign Finance Ruling Turned to Labor’s Advantage - The New York Times”>A Campaign Finance Ruling Turned to Labor’s Advantage - The New York Times;
<p>I would agree that the Citizens United decision is beneficial to labor unions, although I do think the unions were disingenuous regarding their opposition to Citizens United. Take a look at their amicus curiae brief to see were they stood on the issue:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cuvfec.com/documents/case-08-205/Supplemental_Amicus_Brief_of_AFL-CIO.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cuvfec.com/documents/case-08-205/Supplemental_Amicus_Brief_of_AFL-CIO.pdf</a></p>
<p>You may not realize it, but some liberal college students will one day be conservatives, and visa versa.</p>
<p>Examples—</p>
<p>1) Ronald Reagan used to be a democrat</p>
<p>2) George McGovern used to be a republican</p>
<p>3) Hillary Clinton used to be a republican</p>
<p>4) Rick Perry used to be a democrat</p>
<p>^^^^
Don’t want to upset some of the readers, but I always liked the Churchill quote: “If you’re young and not liberal, you have no heart. If you’re old and not conservative, you have no mind.”</p>
<p>
It’s clear that the AFL-CIO was counting on a decision along narrow lines, i.e., whether an idependently funded broadcast of a pseudo-documentary called, “Hillary” passed “the functional equivalency” test that had been handed down in an earlier decision. That decision (I believe it was the one they refer to as <em>McConnell</em>) said, that if the ad or the communication had the same effect as advocating for or against a particular candidate, it could be covered by McCain-Feingold.</p>
<p>But, in (partially) overruling <em>McConnell</em>, election reform advocates argue that the Court went too far and overturned about a century’s worth of precedent that had outlawed direct corporate contributions to individual election campaigns, thus setting up this exchange between the President of the United States and a sitting Justice of the Supreme Court at the State of the Union two years ago:
[Justice</a> Alito: State of the Union “Close-Up” - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-hb-hQXi9s]Justice”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-hb-hQXi9s)</p>
<p>JW, your interpretation of their brief is way too narrow. No, they requested an elimination of the ban on corporate and union funding of electioneering communications. They were particularly incensed with the prohibition in McCain Feingold of paid advertisements for political candidates within 60 days of the election. Unions understand that money equals free speech, because if they are prohibited from spending their money to communicate their message to the people, they have been effectively denied the right to political speech under the first amendment. Today, if you are not allowed to use the paid media to disseminate your political views, your free speech rights to converse with the American people have been curtailed. Legally, unions are corporations.</p>
<p>Of course, they would love to have the ban only apply to non-union corporations, but the Supreme Court was not going to selectively apply these “rights”.</p>
<p>Well, I’m going to yield to my friend, Steve Greenhouse, on this one and interpret the union reaction to <em>Citizens United</em> as an example of necessity giving birth to invention:
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/us/politics/a-campaign-finance-ruling-turned-to-labors-advantage.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&sq=steven[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/us/politics/a-campaign-finance-ruling-turned-to-labors-advantage.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&sq=steven</a> greenhouse&st=cse&scp=12</p>
<p>I am not surprised they are saying this, but an objective observer might see their reaction to Citizens United as self-serving and propagandistic.</p>
<p>So, who are we to believe then, President Obama who says, <em>Citizens United</em> will lead to more corporate money pouring into the election process, or, Justice Alito whose voluble “That’s not true!” was witnessed all over the world?</p>
<p>Well, one thing we can believe is that President Obama is an expert at raising money for his campaigns. He raised over $75 million in last quarter and intends to take in $1 billion for this election cycle. In the last quarter, he relied heavily on very rich bundlers to raise most of the money. 350 individuals have raised at least $55.5 million. 41 couples or individuals are listed as collecting at least $500,000 each. It is most ironic that a fair number of these people are from Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds. I wonder if the Wall Street protestors are even aware of this.</p>
<p>Another little known fact is that 80% of the bundlers from the first campaign received positions inside the administration.</p>
<p>emphasis on <em>individuals</em>. I mean, you’re right in the sense that it’s one thing to wring one’s hands over the spectre of PACs and SuperPacs and their influence on the electoral process while ignoring the arms race in individual campaign donations. But, I think we have to start someplace.</p>
<p>“So, who are we to believe then, President Obama who says, <em>Citizens United</em> will lead to more corporate money pouring into the election process, or, Justice Alito whose voluble “That’s not true!” was witnessed all over the world?”</p>
<p>Actually, JW, Obama said a little bit more than that. He also said the Supreme Court allowed foreign corporations to bankroll American elections. Here is the actual quote from the speech:</p>
<p>Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests including foreign corporations to spend without limit in our elections. Well I dont think American elections should be bankrolled by Americas most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."</p>
<p>In fact, this is a false statement and Alito was correct when he said it was not true. Foreign corporations are prohibited, under 2 U.S.C. 441e, from making any contribution or donation to any committee of any political party, and they prohibited from making any expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication.</p>
<p>Almost every big American corporation is a multinational with foreign subsidiaries. General Electric, nominally an American based corporation, derives a third of its income from overseas. Obama, a former Constitutional law professor, saw the implications right away; that if you undercut a century old law, in this case the Tillman Act (1907), you also undercut every law passed subsequent to and based upon it. Justice Alito can mutter, “That’s not true” all he wants, but that doesn’t change one of the basic rules of judicial precedent.</p>
<p>JW, it is really a stretch to infer that Obama was referring to GE when he lamented the horrible consequences of allowing foreign entities to influence our elections. </p>
<p>I do think our former constitutional law professor needs a refresher course in constitutional law. The Tillman Act, which you and President Obama used as a starting point for a century of law in this area, was not relevant to the issues the Supreme Court dealt with in United Citizens . Tillman banned direct contributions by corporations to federal candidates; it did not prohibit independent political expenditures, the provision in McCain Feingold which was overturned in Citizen United. Remember, Citizens United was a very narrow decision, all it did was overturn one provision in McCain Feingold, the independent expenditures (soft money) made by corporations and unions when referencing a specific candidate within 60 days of federal election. Direct contributions to candidates by corporations was illegal prior to Citizens United and is still illegal subsequent to Citizens United.</p>
<p>Don’t you think it is more than ironic that our first black President would refer to the Tillman Act in his State of the Union, a law authored by Senator Ben “Pitchfork” Tillman, an avowed racist, who is chiefly responsible for the imposition of the Jim Crow laws in the South and an ardent defender of the practice of lynching blacks during that period.</p>
<p>P57 - Are you an attorney?</p>
<p>No - I hope I am not sounding like one.</p>
<p>Not to worry.</p>
<p>Here’s a pretty good capsule of the state of play between <em>Citizens United</em> and <em>Tillman</em> in Sunday’s NYTimes:<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinion/sunday/even-worse-than-citizens-united.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinion/sunday/even-worse-than-citizens-united.html</a></p>
<p>As predicted, a lower court decision has used <em>Citizens</em> , which on a superficial level “only” concerned campaign contributions funneled through independent organizations, to attack <em>Tillman</em>:
</p>
<p>I wasn’t aware of this Judge’s ruling, but I doubt it will have any consequence outside of this narrow case. The ruling is not binding on any other case, so right now its effect is rather limited. Even if the Appeals Court should uphold this decision, corporate contributions will be restricted in the same manner as individual donations. Currently, an individual is prohibited from giving more than $2,500 to a political candidate. No need for the opponents of Citizens United to panic yet.</p>
<p>^^If we were discussing a conservative (in the true Edmund Burke sense), non-activist Court, I’d find your sincerely held (if completely autodidactic) assessment somewhat justified. But, the reality is, that with Justice Scalia and at least three activist colleagues on the bench, the time to panic is before this Court reaches a decision, not after.</p>