[EL] Citizens United revisionist history: "banning books"

[Jonathan Adler]

Well, kinda.

Pressed on the issue, he acknowledged that (under the government's
position) a corporation could be banned from publishing a book unless it
used PAC funds to pay for publication, so a corporate publisher that lacked
a PAC, could be barred from publishing and distributing the book.

Here's the transcript. The relevant exchanges occur at pages 28-30.

JHA



On Sun, Oct 11, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Marty Lederman <lederman.marty at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Just an aside, to address the oft-repeated canard that "the deputy
> solicitor defended government power to *ban books* at the first CU
> argument."
>
> Of course Malcolm Stewart said nothing of the sort.  He said that if a
> *corporation* wished to publish a book containing express advocacy, the
> state could require that such publication *not be subsidized by general
> corporate treasury funds*.
>
> On Sun, Oct 11, 2015 at 2:56 PM, Ilya Shapiro <IShapiro at cato.org> wrote:
>
>> But there's no need to balance rights/values here. 200 people spending a
>> lot of money on political speech don't inhibit anybody else's right to
>> spend money on speech (individually or pooled) or to knock on doors, or to
>> otherwise engage in political speech. There's not some zero-sum game with a
>> finite amount of speech (or a finite amount of money to spend on it).
>>
>> Also, three points regarding some mistaken premises (not sure to what
>> extent the rest of your argument stands or falls thereby):
>>
>> 1. Money is speech only insofar as bullhorns, laptops, printing presses,
>> wifi, and other tools for facilitating speech are, no more no less. That
>> really shouldn't be controversial -- though perhaps, like the deputy
>> solicitor who defended govt power to ban books at the first CU argument,
>> many people on this list are ok with restricting all those tools if they're
>> used "too much" for political speech.
>>
>> 2. There's not a consensus that money shouldn't be used to allocate
>> kidneys. There's a reason there's a shortage of organs and people die on
>> waiting lists. And evidence from Iran, of all places, show that kidney
>> markets can work rather well.
>>
>> 3. I'm not sure what "false" allegations about Planned Parenthood you
>> mean -- I guess something different/earlier than the current scandal -- but
>> surely it's not the government role to be some sort of fact-checker
>> regarding public debates. See the Ohio law that was before the Court last
>> year (you'll perhaps recall my satirical brief that PJ O'Rourke joined) and
>> was struck down on remand.
>>
>> Ilya Shapiro
>>
>>
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-- 

Jonathan H. Adler
Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law
Director, Center for Business Law & Regulation
Case Western Reserve University School of Law
11075 East Boulevard
Cleveland, OH 44106
ph) 216-368-2535
fax) 216-368-2086
cell) 202-255-3012
jha5 at case.edu
SSRN: http://ssrn.com/author=183995

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/author/adlerj/
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