Miscellaneous

Clinton, Not Duff

By Anne Skove, Esq.

Hillary: The Movie is here, but you may or may not be able to view ads about it.

Sorry to disappoint, but the Citizens United film stars Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, Kathleen Willey, and Tony Blankley as The Beaver.

The movie's site claims that HTM "is the first and last word in what the Clintons want America to forget!"

What's this got to do with the SCOTUS? The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is restricting ads about the movie. At the District Court level, Citizens United (Hillary Haters) was refused a preliminary injunction that would have allowed them to proceed with the ads.

Why Not? The FEC does not believe SCOTUS has jurisdiction in the case. It boils down to an intricacy -- a direct appeal of such a denied injunction may be made if the District Court has issued a "final decision;" not for an interlocutory appeal.

The January D.C. premiere was SRO. See "Hillary: The Movie" Debuts in D.C. Jerome R. Corsi, WorldNetDaily (January 15, 2008).

The filmmaker promises to make a similar film about Obama, should he be the nominee. We don't think that's what Will Smith had in mind...

For a somewhat lengthy description of the procedural issues, see New Briefs Ordered in Campaign Ad Case, Lyle Denniston, SCOTUSblog (February 29, 2008). See also Anti-Hillary Movie Smacks of Campaign Ad, Judges Say, Joe Palazzolo, The BLT: The Blog of LegalTimes (January 10, 2008).

The funny (funny sad, not funny ha-ha) thing is that pro or con, ads about a Hillary Clinton movie are So Yesterday! (Now Duff, that's another story; some of her most avid fans are also court-o-rama readers. Go figure!) But determining what constitutes political speech, and hence what is or is not subject to FEC rules, I Can't Wait!

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on March 02, 2008 (boomark / email).