The topic of #CitizensUnited came up, and since I pulled up this quote, I'll share it here.
There has been SO MUCH misinformation about what CU actually said, so I always encourage people to read it directly, especially since Kennedy writes with a certain artistry.
Here's one quote that I always find to capture the essence of its reasoning, showing that it's all based on individuals associating, not so much corporations:
"[The rich always have access] yet certain disfavored associations of citizens—those that have taken on the corporate [or union] form—are penalized for engaging in the same political speech.
"When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves."
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep558/usrep558310/usrep558310.pdf
@volkris
Thanks for this. I hadn't understood this subtlety of #CitizensUnited or why the logic is so flawed.
The argument that gov regulation of speech (eg certain political messages at certain times in certain forums) is fundamentally blocking that speech entirely is just wrong. To then extend this fallacy to thought control, shows just how partisan the logic was.
The CU premise that any non-human entity has the right to completely unrestricted 1A freedom of speech is abhorrent.
You've misunderstood the argument, as it is not what you've framed and then criticized here.
You're fighting a strawman.
@volkris
Please clarify. What did I miss?
Your quote was "...certain disfavored associations of citizens—those that have taken on the corporate [or union] form—are penalized...". From that I simplified that certain nonhuman entities have certain restrictions in certain scenarios.
@volkris
You then quote "“When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful"
From this, I simplified to those limited restrictions being a ban on that info...and thought control.
Admittedly, I simplified. But what did I mischaracterize?
You mischaracterized regulation of sources as regulation of ideas. They are not the same thing at all.
If the administration removes your, personal, ability to express yourself or my ability to listen to you, I would say that in itself is a problem, and that is what the ruling was ruling against.
The government may not censor you, it may not prevent you from speaking because of who you are.
The ruling was a very very clear that government can regulate campaigning in other ways. It just cannot censor based on identity of the speaker, choosing who is and isn't allowed to present their perspectives.
@volkris
While I haven't researched in detail, I don't think that's correct. While CU may have been argued as corporate rights to unlimited funding, the original regulation wasn't based on identity (corp or otherwise). It limited anybody from political speech outside the normal campaign contribution limits.
To me, there was never a ban on "speech" (ie funding), just a cap.
@undefined @TCatInReality
I linked to the #CitizensUnited ruling above so that you can read directly from the Court that the case wasn't about caps or unlimited spending.
Like I said, there has been *so* much misreporting about this case over the years, leaving people so completely misinformed about what what it was about and what the ruling said.
To quote a one sentence summary from the intro:
"The Government may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but it may not suppress that speech altogether."
So the #SCOTUS outright said government may regulate, and it's not about caps but about whether the #speech is to be disallowed completely.
@volkris
Thank you for the sourcing.
But that's exactly my point. The CU case was not about banning speech completely. That was the SCOTUS reasoning, but in bad faith.