| Subject: Re: [EL] Electionlawblog news and commentary 12/22/10 |
| From: Sean Parnell |
| Date: 12/22/2010, 7:15 AM |
| To: "rick.hasen@lls.edu" <rick.hasen@lls.edu>, 'Election Law' <election-law@mailman.lls.edu> |
Can someone tell me which confirmation testimony Roberts and Alito repudiated? Because I don’t recall where they made the statement (or its functional equivalent) that they would never under any circumstance overturn a precedent, or that they would never read the First Amendment in such a way as to permit unlimited independent expenditures by incorporated entities. But I don’t have the transcripts of their testimony, so I could be mistaken.
Another thing, it is simply factually incorrect to say that the Supreme Court’s ruling “permit[s] corporations and unions to secretly pay for political advertising.” They ruled that corporations and unions can make independent expenditures, and also stated that disclosure was appropriate regarding such expenditures. I’ve read Kennedy’s opinion on this and it is ambiguous as to whether he is saying that disclosure as it existed at that time was sufficient, or if he was signaling that Congress can devise a disclosure scheme in response to this decision. If the latter (as I suspect), then the Court may have reasonably assumed that a competent Congress would appropriately respond, if they wished, to the decision by revising the disclosure laws of the day to reflect the ruling’s implications.
As we all know, that did not happen – blame Mitch McConnell, blame Schumer and Van Hollen, blame Obama, blame CCP, blame the “reform” community, blame Democrats or Republicans – pick your bad guy, but the fact of the matter is that, setting aside what exactly “secret” means and what appropriate disclosure is, the lack of a level of disclosure satisfactory to Senator Specter after Citizens United is not due to the Supreme Court, it is due to the fact that Congress did not pass something in its aftermath to address what some felt needed to be addressed.
Sean Parnell
President
Center for Competitive Politics
http://www.campaignfreedom.org
http://www.twitter.com/seanparnellccp
124 S. West Street, #201
Alexandria, VA 22310
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From: election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu [mailto:election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Hasen
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2010 12:15 AM
To: Election Law
Subject: [EL] Electionlawblog news and commentary 12/22/10
AP offers this report.
Posted by Rick Hasen at 09:04 PM
Roll Call offers this report.
Posted by Rick Hasen at 08:28 PM
Roll Call: "Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito repudiated their confirmation testimony and provided the key votes to permit corporations and unions to secretly pay for political advertising -- effectively undermining the basic democratic principle of the power of one person/one vote," Specter said.
Posted by Rick Hasen at 08:24 PM
Maryland legislator Jon Cardin has written this oped.
Posted by Rick Hasen at 07:45 PM
John Fund's provocative new column, raising the old debate about foundation funding for campaign finance reform.
Posted by Rick Hasen at 07:27 PM
You can read the 53-page opinion in this challenge to section 5 of the Voting Rights Act here. The Constitutional Accountability Center offers District Court Issues Opinion Dismissing Private Parties' Challenge to the Constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act.
Posted by Rick Hasen at 03:17 PM