Litigation

Bopp Discusses Citizens United Fallout

By Peter Hardin

Building on the success of the Citizens United case, what will critics of campaign finance regulation  target next?

Lawyer James Bopp Jr., a major player (see Gavel Grab) in framing the litigation that led to last month’s landmark Citizens United decision, seems to give some hints in a commentary for AOL News.

Citizens United “is likely to affect the constitutionality of other campaign finance laws,” Bopp writes, and he lists these areas: federal laws that “that severely restrict contributions to national party committees;”  laws that restrict corporations and labor unions from contributing directly to federal candidates; and certain disclosure laws. Bopp refers specifically to those requiring disclosure of donations to candidates of as little as $25.

“While disclosure of contributions to candidates is generally a good thing,” Bopp elaborates, “laws requiring disclosure of such low amounts doesn’t provide any useful information, and the courts must protect all contributors from harassment and intimidation.”

That Bopp offers even partial acceptance of any campaign disclosure laws is a bit of a surprise, and perhaps may be taken with a grain of salt. Following the Citizens United ruling, he told The New York Times: 

?We had a 10-year plan to take all this down?And if we do it right, I think we can pretty well dismantle the entire regulatory regime that is called campaign finance law.?

The fallout from Citizens United brings two commentaries on how to fortify campaign finance laws in the wake of the ruling. Former Republican Sen. Warren Rudman of New Hampshire favors public financing of congressional elections in a Washington Post column headlined, “Republicans losing their way on campaign finance reform.” The New York Times, in an editorial, supports legislation that would furnish “legitimate antidotes” to Citizens United, which the Times says “amounted to constitutional sanction to unlimited corporate and union campaign contributions.”

For further debate, you can check out Curt Levey’s “Apocalypse Imagined,” in The Hill; and Mark Green’s “Why Citizens United is a Fraud: a Guide for Non-Lawyers,” in Huffington Post.

In an interview with the Politic, former New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse says about Citizens United, “My immediate reaction is that the court has finally come out of the closet, and it?s no longer the minimalist court that Chief Justice Roberts likes us to think it is.”

While Justice at Stake said Citizens United poses grave dangers to America’s elected state courts, the group’s executive director, Bert Brandenburg, also said the decision had a “silver lining.” States can and should require all who ?pay to play? in court elections to fully disclose their financial sources,” he said in a statement.

Full post as published by The Gavel on February 05, 2010 (boomark / email).