U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has announced, while speaking to the very conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research that he will not likely be in attendance at President Obama's next State of the Union Address, scheduled for January of 2011. It seems Alito was insulted by something the president said at the last State of the Union Address. As it happens, I remember it well, the justices had voted to give lobbyists and special interest groups, domestic and foreign, unparalleled rights to donate any sums of money, without transparency, to any candidate for Congress, or for the judiciary. Barack Obama in an atypical moment in his delivery expressed displeasure and disappointment. That particular ruling in favor of the corporations, which was spearheaded by Alito, and elevated by Alito to the point where the Supreme Court ruling was called for, reversed decades of precedent limiting those corporate rights. Alito and the court were influenced by the concept of the right of free speech for corporations.
This notion of free speech for corporations catches my attention. Individual Americans have interests in protecting their security, their rights, their freedoms, their right to have an unobstructed future. A domestic corporation has no such interest. A domestic corporation has as a goal the achievement of high profit, less expense, and we assume, to have certain leeway in dealing with corporate employees. Even a foreign corporation has more personality. A foreign corporation may have interests that modern corporate executives would hold in disdain. Some of these interests could include, for example, the issue of settlement building in Israel, or conversely, the issue of maintaining the status quo on settlement building. A foreign corporation might be interested in influencing American drug laws; import, sale, legality, that kind of thing. A foreign corporation may favor selling weapons to Taiwan, or Saudi Arabia. The list goes on forever. With these thoughts in mind, the president may have been well motivated in his displeasure.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Baronius
"A domestic corporation has as a goal the achievement of high profit, less expense, and we assume, to have certain leeway in dealing with corporate employees."
Not necessarily. A corporation has the goals for which it was incorporated. Citizens United is an advocacy group.
2 - Glenn Contrarian
Citizens United was a travesty of a ruling that flew in the face of a full century of jurisprudence.
But it doesn't stop there. Almost as alarming is the attendance by Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Scalia at a meeting of right-wing cognescenti and billionaire donors at Palm Springs. The meeting is 'confidential' and is closed to the public and to all media (except for the right-wing media already invited there, it seems).
One just wonders how the right-wingers would respond to a couple of the liberal (or at least less-conservative) SCOTUS Justices attending a confidential meeting of left-wing bigwigs and billionaire donors? I think we can all imagine their reaction...
...but since they're right-wingers, it's okay if THEY do it. It's just not okay if the left-wingers do it.
3 - Dan(Miller)
Glen, you might find it useful to read the Citizens United decision. You say, I remember it well, the justices had voted to give lobbyists and special interest groups, domestic and foreign, unparalleled rights to donate any sums of money, without transparency, to any candidate for Congress, or for the judiciary. It did none of those things. It had nothing to do with giving any sum of money to any candidate, left standing existing restrictions on foreign support, and also left standing existing disclosure requirements.
Dan(Miller)
4 - Clavos
Ah, but Dan(Miller), you can't offer your expert input on the case to Glenn, you're a -- gasp! shudder! -- "right-winger!!"
5 - Baronius
The more I think about this article, the less sense it makes. I pointed out that the motives of a corporation aren't necessarily financial. Well, the motives of an individual might not be personal. A person can support settlement in Israel, or the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia. I's sure a lot of American citizens support changes in our drug laws. This Chamber of Commerce dustup points out that individual donors, organizations, and foreign entities may all have the same goals.
I haven't read the decision, but I read Scalia's opinion last night. He points out something important: the Founders didn't say anything about speakers, only about speech. We have no reason to believe that they would have placed organizations outside the protection of free speech.
Additionally, I noted that Alito concurred with Scalia's opinion, which was a reply to Stevens, who was replying to Kennedy, but Alito didn't write an opinion of his own. I don't see where he played the pivotal role that this article implies.
Furthermore, there is no obligation of the members of the Supreme Court to attend the State of the Union Address. Years back, the president didn't even attend it. These days, it's just an opportunity to applaud at any patriotic sentiment and the parts of the president's agenda that you like. It's meaningless.
6 - John Lake
Dan Miller credits Glen Contrarian with the sentence beginning "I remember it well..." For the record, I wrote the article.
John Lake
7 - rjw-progressive
While it is true that there are non-profit corporations, the vast majority of corporations are profit based. And they are the one's with the money.
By law, for-profit corporations are principally required to make profits for their shareholders. (They are not forbidden eleemosynary activities, but even there, there is a requirement that the charitable activities indirectly further the corporate profit goal.)
There is nothing wrong with this per se. Corporations have done many fine, positive things, and have contributed to the growth of our society in many ways.
But still, the goal of for-profit corporations is to maximize profits.
The goal of the government of United States of America is "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."
Two completely different sets of goals.
We need to be very careful in not allowing corporations, driven by the profits goal, to dominate and submerge the goals of our government.
8 - rjw-progressive
Re Citizen's United.
Aside from it's effects, the conservative majority engaged in an extraordinary display of judicial activism: the very sort of judicial activism conservatives claim is destructive of our country.
A basic, even essential, rule of law is that appeals courts will only consider issues which have (i) been 'preserved on the record' for appeal and which have (ii) actually been appealed to them.
In United Citizen's, the conservatives on Supreme Court actually asked for briefs and arguments on an issue which had been neither preserved on the record nor appealed to them.
Now, judicial activism is as American as apple pie, and can be an important vehicle for improving our law and society. (See links below)
But to claim to eschew political activism and embrace it is the very definition of hypocrisy. (It is rumored that Merriam-Websters is looking for an image of "United Citizens" to put next to that definition )
Re judicial activism and American law and legal history.
9 - Arch Conservative
So when Obama criticizes the Supreme Court in front of the nation on a nationally televised broadcast it is "is a clear example of the application and utilization of the balance of power principle," but when a Supreme Court justice, Alito, decides not to attend the next State of the Union Speech (a criticism itself), he is to be ridiculed?
Perhaps you'd feel better if Obama, instead of being president, were names King for the rest of his natural life and given omnipotency over the Serfdom John. Who knows, maybe with a couple more of these ridiculous Obama brown nosing articles you may earn some cushy office job in at the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.
10 - Dan(Miller)
Re #6 -- sorry about; my apologies to Glen.
Dan(Miller)
11 - Dr Dreadful
John, Arch, one of the beauties of the American tripartite system is that any one of the three branches - executive, legislative, judicial - is at perfect liberty to tell any of the others to go fuck themselves. Obama did it to the Court at his State of the Union address; Alito is doing it to Obama now.
It's one of the few machines of government which is currently working well.
12 - zingzing
archie: "Perhaps you'd feel better if Obama, instead of being president, were names King for the rest of his natural life and given omnipotency... blah blah blah..."
you really have to get over your stupid idea that anyone (including obama) wants obama to be anything more than president (twice). it's moronic and a complete waste of your time. i've told you many times before to know your enemy, but you continue to just make up imaginary bullshit and try to use that as some sort of rhetorical weapon. but those whom you attack with nonsense just shrug their shoulders. were you to use anything with even the slightest bit of truth in it, it might actually mean something.
13 - Arch Conservative
Yes Dr. D but if John had his way the penalty for telling Obama to go fuck himself would be death.
14 - zingzing
no it wouldn't.
15 - Arch Conservative
Zing, it's quite obvious that John, like Obama himself, believes that Obama is without fault and that there is no place in this world for criticism of him.
16 - zingzing
not that any of that is true. it's easy to dismiss your hyperbole because there's no truth in it. if you were to use actual facts, you might actually do some damage. your fascist gulag death camp fantasies are just nonsensical trash.
17 - El Bicho
"it's quite obvious that John, like Obama himself, believes that Obama is without fault and that there is no place in this world for criticism of him."
it's quite obvious you don't read much and are poorly informed.
18 - Glenn Contrarian
Dan -
Of all the conservatives on this blog, you're the one I like to debate the most - because you're the one with the most to teach me. Some might say that's blatant brown-nosing, but it's a simple statement of fact. I 'win' by making the strongest argument...but I only gain if I'm taught something I didn't know beforehand.
That said, the Citizens United case was (as I understand it) essentially a battle between campaign reform and First Amendment rights...and the conservatives on the Court took the First Amendment side. That would be all well and good...except for the fact that third-party groups do not have to disclose where their funding comes from. To wit:
75 percent of the $4.2 million ad buy announced this week by American Crossroads was paid for by undisclosed donors and detailed how this massive fundraising has changed Karl Rove's place within the Republican Party.
and from the same reference:
What we found were several fundraising documents that the Chamber has been using in places like Bahrain (and) India. The documents say foreign businesses are welcome and ask that these businesses send money to the same campaign account the 501(c)(6) that the [Chamber of Commerce] is using to run attack ads. And they're telling these foreign businesses that they can have a voice in American public policy debates...However - because the Chamber doesn't disclose [their funding] and they've killed every effort to force disclosure on these campaign ads, we don't know the extent of this [and] we don't know how these funds are used.
"Don't worry," the Chamber says, "we've got 'internal controls' and none of the overseas donations could possibly be used to affect American politics." Yes, there ARE restrictions on foreign funding...but by allowing donations to said funding to be completely anonymous, we have no way of knowing whether foreign entities are pouring sums of money into non-profits in order to to affect our elections.
As I said, the case is (as I see it) essentially a conflict between First Amendment rights and campaign finance reform...and there ARE instances where the First Amendment should not apply, as you do know.
I look forward to your response.
19 - Baronius
RJW - Newspapers are run by corporations. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Newscorp are corporations. Should their speech be restricted?
20 - zingzing
baronius, they do it out in the open, don't they? they aren't anonymous. and do you really consider giving businesses a much, much louder and more powerful voice than the average (human) voter a good thing?
21 - Dan(Miller)
Glen, Citizens United dealt with a specific law which was over broad. During oral argument, government counsel conceded, apparently somewhat reluctantly, that the statute challenged by Citizens United could also be applied even to books.
The statute in question as applied to Citizens United dealt only with a blackout period, 30 days before primaries and 60 days prior to general elections. In my opinion, it was a well reasoned decision. In these days of early voting, absentee voting (except perhaps for military personnel overseas) and the like, I would like to see rather more, but done in ways which respect the First Amendment. That, however, is initially up to the Congress and (since legislation doesn't become law until signed by the President or his veto is overturned by the Congress) to the President.
Corporations own our major television networks. It is certainly conceivable that they dictate to some degree the nature of the "news" and "opinion" broadcast. The statute carves our a media exemption. Why should a corporation which owns automobile manufacturing companies but does not own a network have fewer First Amendment rights than another corporation which owns both automobile manufacturing companies and a network? That question was not before the Court in Citizens United and was not addressed.
Disclosure is good, and as noted in my comment the Citizens United decision left the statutory disclosure requirements standing in full force. If more disclosure is needed -- and I think it may well be -- it's up to the Congress to pass appropriate laws and for the President to sign them into law. That is not a function of the courts.
I think the same regulations should apply to all groups -- corporations, both for- profit and non-profit, partnerships, unions and the rest.
When President Obama (an attorney and allegedly a constitutional scholar) made his statements concerning Citizens United during his State of the Union Address, he was either misinformed or diddling with the truth. He presumably had access not only to the text of the decision but to both his attorney general and his solicitor general. I assume that Solicitor General Kagan, who had presented the government's case during the second round of oral argument, had read the decision. I have no idea whether Attorney General Holder had read it. When President Obama made some rather inaccurate statements about the then new Arizona immigration law, he either hadn't bothered to read the statute and didn't know what he was talking about or he was purposely misleading; I don't know which, but neither is acceptable. When President Obama and his "team" claimed that the mandatory health insurance provisions of ObamaCare were not a tax, and then the government argued in court that they were, the Commerce Clause being insufficient to sustain it, ditto.
We like to assume that the President knows what he is talking about; that assumption is sometimes baseless, and to accept uncritically whatever he (or for that matter others, including Yours Truly) says undermines our intelligence and should, therefor, diminish our self respect. I am about finished with an article dealing with this sort of stuff, and hope it will be published soon. El Bicho's disapproval notwithstanding, I shall post a link here when that happens.
Dan(Miller)
22 - Glenn Contrarian
Dan -
If more disclosure is needed -- and I think it may well be -- it's up to the Congress to pass appropriate laws and for the President to sign them into law.
And as I pointed out in my second comment, it's the disclosure that is crucial. Bear in mind that the Democrats DID try to pass a law requiring disclosure of donors this past summer...and the Republicans ALL (or almost all) opposed it (in addition to the filibuster that has become de riguer for Republican senators during legislative proceedings in the past two years).
And as has been pointed out, there is no way that we can legally force non-profits to disclose their donors even if those donors are foreign governments...and is that not precisely what President Obama pointed out in his criticism during the State of the Union address?
No, Dan - the decision to protect the anonymity of the donors without providing for a way to determine if those donors are foreign entities was no accident. Justices Thomas and Scalia are attending that meeting in Palm Springs along with Republican bigwigs, billionaire donors...and the Chamber of Commerce which actively pursues donations from foreign entities with the express purpose of giving them a "voice" in American politics.
Is my understanding really so far off base? If so, please educate me. If I'm not so far off base, then I think you see the problem just as I do.
23 - Dan(Miller)
Glen,
When President Obama declaimed against the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision during his State of the Union address on January 10, 2010, he said, "[L]ast week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests "- including foreign corporations "- to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.)"
He could, I suppose, have been talking about most anything. I thought he was talking about the Citizens United decision.
Dan (Miller)
24 - Baronius
Glenn, what's so nefarious about Scalia and Thomas's presence at that meeting? Did you not know that they were conservatives before? Do you think that there's going to be some kind of payoff exchanging hands? Why should we care about it?
25 - Dan(Miller)
Once again, Glen, the courts do not enact laws; that's up to the Congress and the President. As I observed here, the Congress and the President need to consider the constitutional implications of legislation before it becomes law, and often don't. The laws have to comport with the Constitution and when their failure to do so is called to the attention of the courts they have an obligation to deal with the problem.
Dan(Miller)