Litigation

Citizens United: A Supreme ?Hijacking??

By Peter Hardin

Former New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse, who knows the workings of the high court far better than most, must be enjoying the freedom that comes with teaching law instead of reporting on it.  In an online column published by the Times, she  lacerates the high court for its approach to the major campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Gavel Grab will cut to the chase and highlight the  heart of her sophisticated slash job. In the column, entitled “Hurry Up and Wait,” Greenhouse writes:

“In placing two major precedents in question and setting off a mid-summer scramble to file supplemental briefs and prepare for an unnecessarily expedited argument, the court cheated the public of the full airing that the complex questions merit. Just as important, the court cheated itself with a power play that prized haste over the calm deliberation that would seem to offer the only path to finding common ground on a polarized court.”

And that comes from a writer who declares her own “long-standing agnosticism on the campaign finance issue” involved. Citizens United, a First Amendment case which the court broadened, was significantly broadened in June, when the court ordered a second hearing, on the blockbuster question of  whether existing U.S. restrictions on direct political campaign spending by corporations should be overturned.

There’s more trenchant analysis from Greenhouse. The Pulitzer Prize winner hammers the “court’s new deregulatory majority” for so greatly expanding the reach of what once a relatively obscure and narrow case about a “feature-length political attack on Hillary Rodham Clinton:”

“I can only assume that the other justices…see this exercise in self-help for what it is: a hijacking that has turned a minor case into an agenda-driven vehicle for undoing the status quo. A tenet of judicial minimalism is that at the very least, the court waits to be asked, rather than reaching out to decide the profound questions of the day.”

When Greenhouse winds down from her high frustration with the court, she is not optimistic, concluding:

“I may not be sure of what I know about how to regulate money in politics, but I’m confident of this prediction: that no matter how the court rules, it will not fix the old problems and–if the past is any guide–just might create new ones.”

The high court recently began a month-long recess without ruling on the controversial case, and a decision may not be released until Jan. 11 at the earliest. You can learn more about Citizens United from Gavel Grab, and also from the Justice at Stake amicus brief in the case.

Full post as published by The Gavel on December 18, 2009 (boomark / email).