Litigation

?Citizens United:? Justice Stevens ?Era Ending??

By Peter Hardin

To examine the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, analysts have applied various lenses. One of the most intriguing of them views the decision, and Justice John Paul Stevens’ courtroom reading from his own dissent, as signals of another change at the high court.

“It seemed the Stevens era was ending,” reporter Adam Liptak of the New York Times wrote, discussing both the 89-year-old justice’s sometimes halting reading from his dissent on behalf of a minority of four justices, and his selection to write it–in a style that was “shot through with disappointment, frustration and uncharacteristic sarcasm.”

?The court?s decision is at war with the views of generations of Americans,? Justice Stevens read from the bench about the majority ruling. It removed restraints on corporations spending on ads to support or oppose federal candidates.

He is the longest-serving justice on the court, and there have been hints he may retire at the end of the term.

In the deluge of articles and commentary about the decision, several others focused on an Citizens United and the role of an individual jurist. A Washington Post headline captured well the theme of one such article: “Justice Kennedy was key to conservatives’ win in campaign finance decision.”

The decision represented  a vindication of the approach he’s wanted to take on the First Amendment for a long time,” said Helen J. Knowles of the State University of New York at Oswega, an authority on the justice’s legal thinking.

A commentary in Salon, by Andrew Leonard, was devoted to Justice Clarence Thomas’ dissenting stance against disclosure of sponsors of political advertising:

“Thomas came out against the principle of transparency, and for the right of corporations to spend millions of dollars to influence public policy without having to tell anyone what they were up to.”

Meanwhile, it was reported Monday that President Obama “plans an aggressive pushback” to  Citizens United. The report comes from the online publication Politico, which quoted an unnamed Obama administration official as saying the court’s decision “?established the legal landscape for campaign finance reform ? and we are responding to it with urgency.?

According to Politico, the White House is talking with congressional offices about several legislative fronts: mandating shareholder votes before a corporation could election expenditures; heightened disclosure in ads that support or oppose candidates, of the companies funding them; limits on those companies getting large federal contracts from broadcasting such ads; and tougher rules on coordination of ads between outside groups and candidates.

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 26, 2010 (boomark / email).