Legal News

Citizens Divided? Dems Float Bill to Blunt Scotus Decision

By Ashby Jones

It didn’t take long after the Citizens United decision came down for members of Congress to ramp up a little fist-wagging campaign in response.

Well, on Thursday, Congressional Democrats unveiled their designs to stunt the effect of Citizens United, which came down last month. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (pictured) (D-Md.) rolled out the framework of their plans.

Of course, there’s only so much Schumer, Van Hollen et al. can do. In its 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for campaign ads. Such prohibitions, the court ruled, violate the First Amendment. Ain’t so much Congress can do to change the heart of the court’s opinion without treading very carefully.

But Congress might be able to tinker at the edges. Click here for Mark Ambinder’s post at CBS News; here for the announcement from Van Hollen’s Web site. The Schumer/Van Hollen legislation attempts to, for example, create procedural deterrents to prevent the influence of foreign entities in U.S. elections. It also attempts to attempts to give the traditional players in politics — politicians and parites — an advantage over corporations and labor unions.

Perhaps the most controversial part of the reform: the mandate that CEOs and labor union leaders would have to appear on camera approving their message, much like candidates are required to do now.

Furthermore, any expenditure corporations make on politics has to be disclosed on their Web site with a “clear link on their homepage” and disclosed quarterly to shareholders.

Lastly, when a corporation decides to buy an ad to influence a rate in a particular market, the candidate or party then gets (a) reasonable access to airtime and (b) the lowest unit rate charged per ratings point by the broadcaster.

Almost immediately, interest groups threw their two-cents worth our way. At Democracy 21, Fred Wertheimer said his organization “strongly supports the package of reforms announced today by Representative Van Hollen and Senator Schumer to respond to the Citizens United decision.”

The folks at the Center for Competitive Politics were decidedly less enthusiastic.

"Any legislative attempt to dismantle the Court's ruling in Citizens United must be narrowly tailored and backed up by evidence of a compelling government interest," said the organization’s president, Sean Parnell, who testified at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing last week on the proposals. "This rush to ram a bill through before such a record could possibly be established does neither."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 11, 2010 (boomark / email).