Citizens United CU

merri ok

capt 316 519

SEE CU CASE 2

this is mostly about the CASE, see also CU org node and CU tag

see also dark $ and mcconnell staff network

bak1219

html circus

lever master plan 2nd choice RR after Bork, smoke pot --> kennedy ex CA lobbyist?! bopp saw opening, bossie fired him for ted O on CU 2010

souter smoking dissent never public?!

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thom an 12 23

— Morbidly rich billionaires in America haven’t just been buying Supreme Court justices — they’ve also purchased over 100 federal judges... Lever News is reporting on research that discovered over 100 federal judges have been getting lavish vacations and trips around the world, fully paid for by some of America’s most politically aggressive billionaires and their companies and foundations. We thought the corruption was limited to Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett but now it appears the rot is much deeper.

The story is truly grotesque and explains why so many Americans are losing faith in our nation’s institutions. When five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized political bribery with Citizens United in 2010, they apparently also legalized the bribery of judges up and down the line, including themselves.

Never ones to miss an opportunity, several billionaires and their foundations have stepped forward to pick up their very own federal judges while they’re still going for cheap. Invest a few million in luxury vacations, make billions when the regulatory or tax laws are struck down or changed by the judges who took the vacations: buying judges and politicians is the best investment available in America today.

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mAGA Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) has been railing against the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and has been pushing a measure attacking the controversial 2010 decision — which, he argues, conservatives never should have defended. Hawley's measure is a rare example of a pro-Donald Trump Republican attacking a High Court ruling that has drawn more criticism from the left than from the right.

But journalist Jason Linkins, in an article published by the liberal-leaning New Republic on November 4, slams the Missouri Republican's campaign to "overturn Citizens United" is a "complete joke."

"There are many — mainly on the left — who'd like to somehow overturn Citizens United v. FEC, the execrable 2010 decision that unleashed a tidal wave of funny money into our politics and demonstrated that the Supreme Court didn't need to have a 6–3 conservative tilt to cock up the entire country," Linkins argues. "It would be great if we could pass a law and set things right, but here's the rub: Congress can't fix it, sorry!"

Linkins adds, "As MSNBC's Jordan Rubin explained, overturning the decision would require one of two unlikely events: the Supreme Court choosing to reverse itself or the successful enactment of a constitutional amendment…. The fact that Hawley, even with the assent of Congress and the president, literally cannot 'overturn' Citizens United makes this matter done and dusted."

The journalist stresses that despite all of Hawley's "posturing," his Citizens United proposals "would leave unchecked the flood of dark money" in U.S. politics.

"If you're authentically aggrieved by the Citizens United decision," Linkins explains, "this is where the profound misrule lies: Political nonprofits — mainly 501(c)(4)s — can accept unlimited donations and don't have to disclose their donors, even when the nonprofit then sends the money to super PACs, which do have to disclose donors."

:{*:{Read Jason Linkins' full article for The New Republic at this link.}:

'Despicable': DHS secretary decimates GOP Senator Josh Hawley ›

OpenSecrets' original research indicates:

Despite fears that elections would be dominated by corporations, the biggest political players are actually wealthy individual donors. The 10 most generous donors and their spouses injected $1.2 billion into federal elections over the last decade. That tiny group of major donors accounted for 7 percent of total election-related giving in 2018, up from less than 1 percent a decade prior.
The balance of political power shifted from political parties to outside groups that can spend unlimited sums to bolster their preferred candidates. Election-related spending from non-party independent groups ballooned to $4.5 billion over the decade. It totaled just $750 million over the two decades prior.
Even political candidates found themselves dwarfed by independent groups that in many cases morphed into effective arms of political campaigns and parties. Outside spending surpassed candidate spending in 126 races since the ruling. That happened just 15 times in the five election cycles prior.
Despite promises from the court that monied interests would be required to reveal their political giving, the ruling gave new powers to dark money organizations. Groups that don't disclose their donors flooded elections with $963 million in outside spending, compared to a paltry $129 million over the previous decade.
Major corporations didn't take full advantage of their new political powers. Corporations accounted for no more than one-tenth of independent groups' fundraising in each election cycle since the ruling.But secretly funded nonprofits and trade associations that influence elections take money from major companies in amounts that are mostly unknown.
The ruling didn't reverse the ban on foreign money in elections, but it provided opportunities for foreign actors to secretly funnel money to elections through nonprofits and shell companies.

Follow the Citizens United Money:

The Courts Trump Congress

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[history, long]

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/the-citizens-united-ruling-broke-american-democracy-at-the-start-of-the-decade-it-may-never-recover/

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The Citizens United ruling broke American democracy at the start of the decade. It may never recover

Written by Igor Derysh / Salon December 29, 2019

The election of President Donald Trump will likely define this decade, but the breakdown in our political system which sowed deeper partisan divisions and ultimately paved the way for his White House victory can be traced back to a single January day almost exactly ten years ago.

On Jan. 21, 2010, then-Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy cast the deciding vote in the Citizens United case, which was brought by a group chaired by David Bossie, who would later serve as Trump’s deputy campaign manager.

Kennedy wrote in the majority decision that limits on independent expenditures violated the First Amendment rights of corporations and other groups, effectively overturning spending restrictions dating back more than a century.

The decision allowed corporations to spend unlimited money on campaign ads as long as they did not formally coordinate with candidates or political parties. According to Kennedy, there could not be corruption, because “an independent expenditure is political speech presented to the electorate that is not coordinated with a candidate.”

Some have argued that the ruling was the “logical next step” after the court’s 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, which said election spending limits may violate the First Amendment. But the Supreme Court ruled in favor of corporate limits in 1990 and then upheld limits on corporate and union spending in 2003.

The Citizens United ruling was later compounded by Republican efforts to block transparency rules, Federal Election Commission rulings and further court decisions like McCutcheon v. FEC, paving the way for the creation of super PACs, or committees which can spend unlimited sums of money to promote or oppose candidates while hiding the identities of their donors.

The impact of the Citizens United ruling and subsequent campaign finance changes are undeniable. In 2010, the biggest Republican donor of the election cycle spent $7.6 million to support conservative candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CPR).Just eight years later, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, donated $122 million to support GOP candidates, or more than 15 times as much.

Democrats pumped big money into elections, too. Presidential contender Mike Bloomberg spent $95 million during the last election cycle, while fellow billionaire candidate Tom Steyer spent more than $73 million, according to CPR data. [FOR GUNS AND CliMATE]

There was certainly loads of money pumped into elections prior to Citizens United. The 2008 presidential election, which was the last national contest before the Supreme Court decision, saw about $338 million in outside spending. But the amount of outside cash injected into the presidential race skyrocketed to more than $1 billion in 2012 and $1.4 billion in 2016.

Such massive expenditures are not limited to presidential races. The 2018 midterm election cycle was the first in history to see more than $1 billion in outside spending — up from $69 million just four cycles earlier and $567 million in 2014, according to the CPR.

Super PACs quickly became the biggest outside spenders. In 2018, the House Republican-linked Congressional Leadership Fund spent $136 million, the Senate Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC spent $112 million and the Mitch McConnell-connected Senate Leadership Fund spent $94 million, according to the CPR.

Though both parties have raised and spent hundreds of millions in outside money — and the Citizens United ruling has been criticized by both former President Barack Obama and Trump — researchers at the University of Chicago, Columbia University and the London School of Economics and Political Science found that the rise of dark money has resulted in a huge advantage for Republicans in state legislature races, particularly in “states with weak unions.”

“We find that Citizens United increased the GOP’s average seat share in the state legislature by five percentage points. That is a large effect— large enough that, were it applied to the past twelve Congresses, partisan control of the House would have switched eight times,” the researchers wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. “In line with a previous study, we also find that the vote share of Republican candidates increased three to four points on average.” PLUS GERRY VOTE SUPPRESS?!]

The result has been a shift much further to the right in numerous state legislatures and an increase in “ideological extremism,” which was more prevalent among Democrats, according to the study.

In the 2010 election, the first to see a massive upswing in outside money, Republicans captured two dozen state legislative chambers ahead of a game-changing nationwide gerrymandering effort, which made it harder than ever for Democrats to win back the seats they lost.

“Without Citizens United every frontline Congressional race of the last two cycles are TOTALLY different,” Fordham Law Professor Zephyr Teachout tweeted. “A billion in outside spending in 2018. And that is just a tiny fraction of the impact.”

Despite Kennedy’s insistence that there could be no corruption because candidates cannot coordinate with super PACs, the ruling has also led to corruption as candidates flout rules preventing them from coordinating with the PACs. [EITAN_]

“The supposed barrier between candidates and unrestricted super PACs is flimsier than ever,” Roll Call reported just four years after the ruling. “As midterm elections approach, complaints are rolling into the FEC from both parties about super PACs that share vendors, fund-raisers and video footage with the politicians they support.”

GOP leaders like Paul Ryan devised ways to solicit money directly from billionaires like Adelson by using go-betweens. The New York Times reported in 2015 that Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina had “aggressively” exploited loopholes to allow a super PAC to effectively run her campaign.

And the corruption is not merely limited to exploiting loopholes in the law. Obama warned in a State of the Union speech that the Citizens United ruling could lead to foreign interference in U.S. elections. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito could be seen mouthing the words, “Not true.”

But Obama’s foreshadowing turned out to be remarkably true. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the two associates of Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, were recently indicted on charges that they illegally funneled foreign money to Republican politicians, including a $325,000 contribution to a pro-Trump super PAC.

George Nader, an adviser to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who was linked to efforts to aid Trump’s campaign during the election, was also indicted for allegedly funneling $3.5 million into elections, including a $1 million contribution to a Democratic super PAC.

In 2012, a foreign-owned company made a $1 million contribution to a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC.

Democratic presidential candidates, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have premised their campaigns on driving big money out of politics. Sanders has long called for a constitutional amendment to repeal Citizens United, which was echoed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and others at the party’s December primary debate.

But it may be nearly impossible to meet the high threshold to ratify a constitutional amendment. There has only been one amendment ratified since 1971. While House Democrats voted to approve H.R. 1, which called for the ruling to be repealed, there appears to be little to no support for the legislation from Republicans in the upper chamber.

Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have decried these efforts as attempts to “ban political speech.”

“In our view, the answer to that problem is to expand — not limit — the resources available for political advocacy. Thus, the ACLU supports a comprehensive and meaningful system of public financing that would help create a level playing field for every qualified candidate,” the organization said. “We support carefully drawn disclosure rules, we support reasonable limits on campaign contributions and we support stricter enforcement of existing bans on coordination between candidates and super PACs.”

Some local governments have tried to counter the rise of dark money with public financing.Seattle’s “democracy vouchers” give voters $100, which they can donate to any campaign in a local election. Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has proposed a similar “Democracy Dollars” program, which would expand this initiative across the country.

But while cities, states and federal lawmakers grapple with the rise of dark money in politics, one thing that is clear is that Citizens United irrevocably changed politics over the course of the last decade — and beyond.

Kennedy himself admitted in 2015 that the disclosure requirement he believed would fix any potential issues of corruption was “not working the way it should.” FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel quit in 2017 over the state of campaign finance, writing in her resignation letter that “our political campaigns have been awash in unlimited, dark money” since the Citizens United decision.

“Most of the funding comes from a tiny, highly unrepresentative segment of the population,” she wrote. “Disclosure laws need to be strengthened, the broken jurisprudence of Citizens United re-examined, public financing of candidates ought to be expanded to reduce reliance on the wealthy and commissioners who will carry out the mandates of the law should be appointed.”

A Brennan Center report pointed out that a small wealthy group of Americans now wields “more power than at any time since Watergate, while many of the rest seem to be disengaging from politics.”

“This is perhaps the most troubling result of Citizens United: in a time of historic wealth inequality,” report author Daniel Weiner wrote, “the decision has helped reinforce the growing sense that our democracy primarily serves the interests of the wealthy few and that democratic participation for the vast majority of citizens is of relatively little value.”

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How Citizens United corrupted the US Supreme Court and guaranteed Republicans will never turn on Trump

President Donald J. Trump honors Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell during the federal judicial confirmation milestones event, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Written by Thom Hartmann / Independent Media Institute December 4, 2019

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

There is a very simple reason why some Republicans voted for the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, but none have so far broken ranks against Trump. That reason is a corrupted U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1976 (Buckley v. Valeo) and 1978 (First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti), the Supreme Court ruled that when corporations and billionaires purchase their very own politicians, it is constitutionally protected “free speech” rather than “bribery,” which is how we defined it from the beginning of our republic until 1976. In 2010, the Supreme Court doubled down on its betrayal of American democracy with its Citizens United decision.

After those twin decisions in the 1970s, money from corporations and the morbidly rich began to flow into the coffers of the Republican Party, hoisting Ronald Reagan into the White House. (Democrats were then still largely funded by unions, and thus not so easily up for sale.)

The spigots of cash never turned off; the 2016 election was a $6.5 billion affair.

As a result, today’s Republican politicians are wholly owned agents of corporations and the billionaire class, stoking extreme anger over a few social issues (immigration, guns, God, gays, race) and using it to bring in the Fox rubes that the billionaire Murdochs kindly hand them.

Prior to this betrayal of America by the Supreme Court, politicians generally felt a need to respond to the wants and needs of their constituents. From Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s people-powered election in 1932 to Reagan’s inauguration in 1981, politicians’ proposed legislation and votes tended to reflect what the people in their districts or states wanted.

Nixon’s impeachment hearings happened in 1974, before the Supreme Court legalized bribery—and so the Senate voted 77-0 to forward the investigation, and the House voted 412-3 to accept the Judiciary Committee’s report showing “clear and convincing evidence” of Nixon’s corruption. Republicans were more concerned about their voters than about their donors back then.

From the 1980s to today, though, as a study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page shows, the political desires of the economic bottom 90 percent of Americans are completely irrelevant to the introduction or passage of legislation. But the desires of the top 10 percent of Americans are consistently passed into law and policy.

Republicans don’t want the money to stop, so they have to keep supporting Trump as he pushes the corporate- and billionaire-friendly policies of deregulation and tax cuts supported by their donors.

When the billionaires abandon Trump, so will the GOP.

It’s really just that simple.

As long as the Supreme Court continues to assert that there is absolutely nothing wrong with billionaires and corporations owning politicians, the GOP will continue to be an extension of the lobbying industry and the morbidly rich. In exchange for deregulation and tax cuts, that bunch would work to keep a gerbil in the White House, if that’s what it took.

And as long as their owners and funders continue to pay Republicans to keep Trump in office, they’ll continue to say, “How high?” every time Trump yells, “Jump!”

Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of “The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America” and more than 25 other books in print. He is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/how-a-historic-ruling-in-alaska-could-provide-a-roadmap-to-defeating-citizens-united/

Eoin Higgins / Common Dreams November 5, 2019

A ruling in a court in Alaska Monday could open the door to imposing more restrictions on super PACs and possibly reversing the infamous 2012 Citizens United by the U.S. Supreme Court that in 2012 upended the nation’s campaign finance laws.

Anchorage Superior Court Judge William F. Morse ordered the state to impose limits on donations to political groups in Alaska, saying in the ruling (pdf) that the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC), which handles election enforcement, “should reinstate enforcement of the contribution limits at issue.” The decision is expected to head to the Alaska Supreme Court.

In a statement, election reform group Equal Citizens founderLawrence Lessigsaid that the decision in favor of three Alaskan citizens contesting the unlimited donations was “historic.”

“This decision gives Alaskans and all Americans a chance to revisit those destructive decisions,” said Lessig, who helped develop the legal strategy for the case. “And it will allow us to continue to make our case that the Framers did not wish to see super PACs. Just the opposite: they would have despised the kind of corruption we have seen recently, and the Constitution gives states the power to eliminate it.”

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no lnx

https://www.newsweek.com/should-names-citizens-united-donors-be-disclosed-814901

OPINION

SHOULD THE NAMES OF CITIZENS UNITED DONORS BE DISCLOSED?

TREVOR BURRUS AND REILLY STEPHENS

ON2/21/18AT 11:46 AM EST

This article first appeared on the Cato Institute site.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman demands out-of-state charities disclose all donors for his inspection. He does not demand this of all charities, only those he decides warrant his special scrutiny.

Schneiderman garnered national attention for his campaign to use the powers of his office to harass companies and organizations who do not endorse his preferred policies regarding climate change.

Now, it seems he seeks to do the same to right-of-center organizations that might displease him. Our colleague Walter Olson has cataloged Schneiderman's many misbehaviors.

He's currently set his sights on Citizens United, a Virginia non-profit that produces conservative documentaries. While Citizens United has solicited donations in New York for decades without any problem, Schneiderman now demands that they name names, telling him who has chosen to support the group.

Citizens United challenged this demand in court, arguing that to disclose this information would risk subjecting their supporters to harassment and intimidation.

These fears are not mere hyperbole. If the name Citizens United rings a bell, it's because the organization, and the Supreme Court case of the same name, has become the Emmanuel Goldstein of the American left, complete with Democratic senators leading a ritualistic two minutes hate on the Senate floor.

In 2010, the Supreme Court upheld its right to distribute Hillary: The Movie, and ever since "Citizens United" has been a synecdoche for what Democrats consider to be the corporate control of America.

Is it unwarranted to think that their donors might be subjected to the sort of targeted harassment suffered by lawful gun owners, or that Schneiderman might "accidentally" release the full donor list to the public, as Obama's IRS did with the confidential filings of gay marriage opponents?

The Supreme Court has long recognized the dangers inherent in applying the power of the state against the right of private association.

The cornerstone here is 1958's NAACP v Alabama . For reasons that hardly need be pointed out, the NAACP did not trust the state of Alabama, in the 1950s, to be good stewards of its membership lists. "Inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs," wrote Justice John Marshall Harlan II, who went as far as to compare such demands to a "requirement that adherents of particular religious faiths or political parties wear identifying arm-bands."

More recently,Justice Alito pointed out in a similar context that while there are undoubted purposes served by reasonable, limited disclosure requirements, the First Amendment requires that "speakers must be able to obtain an as-applied exemption without clearing a high evidentiary hurdle" regarding the potential harms of disclosure.

But the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has decided it knows better than the Supremes. On Thursday, it ruled that Citizen United's challenge should be thrown out without even an opportunity to prove their case. In the process, it effectively turned NAACP into a "Jim Crow" exception to a general rule of unlimited government prerogative to panoptic intrusion into citizen's political associations.

While there can be no doubt that the struggle for civil rights presented a unique danger for its supporters, this should not mean that only such perils warrant First Amendment protection.

The marketplace of ideas is often fraught with contention, and those who support controversial causes must shoulder some risk. As the lateJustice Scalia argued, "running a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage."

But anonymity in such pursuits serves important purposes, and the premise that concealment of one's identity is a sign of ill-will would have surprised James Madison, who published numerous defenses of the new constitution, convincing his fellow citizens of the virtue of the endeavor; he signed them "Publius."

In our schismatic political climate, many people could suffer if their political views were made widely known. This could include everything from adverse employment actions to outright violence.

Some groups, such as those in the "antifa," have openly advocated violence against political opponents.

It's odd that some on the modern left find themselves on the same side as the state of Alabama in 1958: arguing that those who support some political views should be disclosed to the state, even if violence might result.

Although an appeal has not yet been filed, the Supreme Court should take the case and reverse the Second Circuit, making it clear that a compelling government interest is required before the government can force the disclosure of people's political affiliations.

Trevor Burrus is a research fellow in the Cato Institute's Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and managing editor of the Cato Supreme Court Review.

Reilly Stephens is a Legal Associate with the Cato Institute's Center For Constitutional Studies.

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From Free Speech for People:An amicus brief recently submitted in Lieu v. FEC includes peer-reviewed research demonstrating that large contributions to Super PACs create an appearance of corruption. Their research consisted of two “vignette-based experiments” in which people were recruited to serve as mock jurors and determine whether various campaign finance fact patterns met the standard for quid pro quo corruption under federal bribery statutes. Read more.

https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/hobby-lobby-argument

History of Corporate Personhood

How did we get to the point where a for-profit corporation can lay claim to religious rights? Ciara Torres-Spelliscy on the slithering history of corporate personhood.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy

April 7, 2014

In McCutcheon v. FEC, handed down last Wednesday, the Supreme Court built on the precedent of Citizens United by invalidating the federal aggregate contribution limit for individuals. But McCutcheon is not the only case that gives the Supreme Court chance to expand Citizens United’s reach this term.

In *Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores*, the Supreme Court has to choose whether to extend the logic of 2010’s Citizens Unitedto allow a corporation to make a religious objection to a generally applicable law.

How we got to the point where a for-profit corporation – not a church mind you – can lay claim to religious rights is a bit complicated. It all goes back to a legal fiction known as corporate personhood.

Generally, corporate personhood allows companies to hold property, enter contracts, and to sue and be sued just like a human being. But of course some human rights make no sense for a corporation, like the right to marry, to parent a child, or to vote. As Professor Elizabeth Pollman explains when it comes to Constitutional rights for corporations there is a hodgepodge: “corporations enjoy Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable regulatory searches, but do not have a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.”

If you’re a fan of the Colbert Report, “corporate personhood” might sound familiar. Stephen Colbert got a well deserved Peabody Award for his work educating the public about campaign finance laws with his lawyer Trevor Potter. However, Mr. Colbert’s verbal tick of saying that Citizens United granted corporate personhood is a tad misleading.

Citizens United did not grant corporations personhood. Corporations already had it. As lawyer David Gans has documented, despite the fact that the U.S. Constitution never mentions corporations, corporate personhood has been slithering around American law for a very long time. The first big leap in corporate personhood from mere property rights to more expansive rights was a claim that the Equal Protection Clause applied to corporations.

The 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War in 1868 to grant emancipated slaves full citizenship, states, “No state shall ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person ... the equal protection of the laws.”

We have the likes of former U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling to thank for the extension of Equal Protection to corporations. Conkling helped draft the 14th Amendment. He then left the Senate to become a lawyer. His Gilded Age law practice was going so swimmingly that Conkling turned down a seat on the Supreme Court not once, but twice.

Conkling argued to the Supreme Court in San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road that the 14th Amendment is not limited to natural persons. In 1882, he produced a journal that seemed to show that the Joint Congressional Committee that drafted the amendment vacillated between using “citizen” and “person” and the drafters chose person specifically to cover corporations. According to historian Howard Jay Graham, “[t]his part of Conkling’s argument was a deliberate, brazen forgery.”

As Thom Hartmann notes the Supreme Court embraced Conkling’s reading of the 14th Amendment in a headnote in 1886 in *Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road*: “Before argument, Mr. Chief Justice Waite said: ‘The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.’” This was not part of the formal opinion. But the damage was done. Later cases uncritically cited the headnote as if it had been part of the case.

Some Supreme Court Justices objected to the Santa Clara approach. Dissenting in *Wheeling Steel Corp.* in 1949 Justice William O. Douglas and Justice Hugo Black noted that the corporate personhood issue was not such an open and shut case: “[In Santa Clara] [t]here was no history, logic, or reason given to support that view. … [T]he purpose of the [14th] Amendment was to protect human rights-primarily the rights of a race which had just won its freedom.” Justices Douglas and Black thought the question of corporate personhood should be decided by the people, not the Supreme Court. But they could not convince their fellow Justices.

In the 1970s, Santa Clara was used to justify granting corporations the First Amendment right to spend unlimited corporate funds on ballot initiatives in a case called *Bellotti*. The Court relied on Santa Clara’s reading when it stated that “[i]t has been settled for almost a century that corporations are persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Justice Rehnquist, in his dissent, questioned the wisdom of extending corporations political rights: “those properties, so beneficial in the economic sphere, pose special dangers in the political sphere.” Again Rehnquist could not convince his brethren.

In *Citizens United*, when the Supreme Court held that political speech is “indispensable to decision making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation,” they cited Bellotti. Thus it’s only a hop, skip and a jump from Santa Clara to Citizens United.

In Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, the store chain is claiming that the corporation (and not just its proprietors) has a religious objection to providing certain types of birth control for its workers as required by the Affordable Care Act. Thus, the Court is contemplating expanding corporate personhood to a new logical extreme: First Amendment religious rights. It’s no surprise that Hobby Lobby’s brief relies on Bellotti and Citizens United.

There are absurdities that flow from granting legal fictions Constitutional rights that were intended for humans. Corporations don’t have minds, and without one it is hard to see how a corporation “thinks” about any political issue du jour from gay rights to the budget deficit. Without a soul, it’s hard to conceptualize how a corporation could “believe” in anything whether it is transubstantiation of communion or the morality of birth control. But here we go again. A corporation makes a Constitutional claim to the righteousness of their legal position. The question is will the Justices fall for it?

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On Fifth Anniversary of Citizens United, Eshoo Co-Introduces Constitutional Amendment to Rid Politics of Dark MoneyThe Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United and McCutcheon have cast a dark shadow over our democracy by bringing us dangerously closer to an electoral system where the voices of average Americans are easily drowned out by special interests, shadowy front groups, and a handful of billionaires," said Eshoo. "At a time when Americans of every political persuasion want big money out of our elections, the Democracy for All Amendment will restore their authority to pass laws protecting the integrity of our electoral process. By reversing Citizens United and related cases, this amendment will advance the basic principle of "one voice-one vote' that is integral to our democracy

Statement

By: :{Anna Eshoo:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-weight:inherit;font-style:inherit;vertical-align:baseline"):}:

Date: Jan. 22, 2015

Location: Washington, DC

Keyword Search : Corporation

:{:{

}:}:

Yesterday, on the five-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) co-introduced the Democracy for All Amendment. This proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution would reverse highly controversial Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United v. FEC and McCutcheon v. FEC, which have given corporations and America's wealthiest donors a right to buy unlimited influence in our nation's elections. Eshoo joined original co-sponsors of the bill Reps. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Donna F. Edwards (D-Md.), and Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).

"The Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United and McCutcheon have cast a dark shadow over our democracy by bringing us dangerously closer to an electoral system where the voices of average Americans are easily drowned out by special interests, shadowy front groups, and a handful of billionaires," said Eshoo. "At a time when Americans of every political persuasion want big money out of our elections, the Democracy for All Amendment will restore their authority to pass laws protecting the integrity of our electoral process. By reversing Citizens United and related cases, this amendment will advance the basic principle of "one voice-one vote' that is integral to our democracy."

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CU dark money to state (supreme ct) judge elections

andy kroll

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/judicial-elections-citizens-united-karl-rove/

evil triple whammy: CU, CFG and lamar sci suppress

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05122017/lamar-smith-congress-climate-change-fossil-fuel-industry-house-science-committee

no link pix grafic

FREDERICKSBURG, Texas—It's midway through fall, and cold has yet to settle over the Eckhardt family orchard. So, Diane Eckhardt waits with rising apprehension.

Cold is the switch that triggers the growing sequence that by summer has limbs sagging with ripe, juicy peaches. The reliable chill season in Texas Hill Country allowed Eckhardt's grandfather, Otto, to start the family business here in the 1930s.

But last year, with temperatures the warmest since 1939, Eckhardt's trees produced just 10 percent of their usual yield. And the year before, warm weather reduced production between 60 and 70 percent. Now, Eckhardt worries not only about the next crop, but about the future of a business she hopes will be passed on to her niece and nephews.

"We know climate change is happening," she said.

But while the Eckhardts face that certainty, their congressman sows uncertainty, casting doubt on the consensus science that greenhouse gases are the dominant cause of rising global temperatures, and opposing government action to curb them.

Sixteen-term Republican Lamar Smith has used his power as chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee for the past five years to do battle on behalf of the fossil fuel industry.Embracing the arguments of a small group of climate contrarians, Smith acknowledges that warming is happening but says more research is needed to determine the amount and causes, and whether it does more good than harm.

Smith's critics say he misrepresents facts, cleverly casts doubt on legitimate studies by claiming they are based on "secret data" and uses his subpoena power to help industry battle state and federal regulators and environmental groups. The result is that a panel with vast jurisdiction over all government non-military science, research and development has become an instrument of attack on mainstream climate science.

"Anyone stating what the climate will be in 500 years or even at the end of the century is not credible," Smith said at a hearing he chaired in March. "In the field of climate science, there is legitimate concern that scientists are biased in favor of reaching predetermined conclusions. This invariably leads to alarmist findings that are wrongly reported as facts."

Things weren't always this way. Under both Democratic and moderate Republican leadership, the science committee since the late 1970s had educated lawmakers and the public about the threats posed by rising temperatures caused by human activity and the need for decisive action.

But in a case study of the power of fossil fuel interests to shape government policy, the industry's money and alliances with conservative think tanks and advocacy groups transformed the committee's membership and supported the rise of Smith, son of an old oil and ranching family in South Texas.

Choke Hold: House Science

Today, "we're in total denial," says the highest-ranking Democrat on the panel, fellow Texan Eddie Bernice Johnson. Instead of looking at the evidence and making policy recommendations on climate—as once happened—the committee is "pretending to be oblivious."

"When you look at the [campaign] contribution list, it becomes very clear" that the forces that oppose regulation are calling the shots, she said.

Smith, 70, has announced he will retire after his term as chairman ends next year. But many believe his legacy will be lasting.The committee under Smith has "contributed to the sort of diminishment of science in public policy," said Andrew Rosenberg, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an organization that has been one of Smith's targets. "It has reinforced the view that everything must be partisan, and you've got to choose sides. It sends a message that science is partisan, too."

The Science Committee Transformed

The House Science Committee held Congress' first hearings on climate science in 1976, and it resulted in passage of bipartisan legislation to establish a National Climate Program Office. Five years later, Al Gore, then a congressman and committee member, co-chaired another set of hearings on "Carbon Dioxide and Climate: The Greenhouse Effect."

With fidelity to its nonpartisan tradition, the committee championed scientists who found themselves under fire during President George W. Bush's administration. The Republican chairman at the time, Sherwood Boehlert of New York, faced off against Bush officials and GOP colleagues on Capitol Hill, armed, he says now, with what he learned about global warming during 24 years on the committee. "I [witnessed] a parade of some of the most distinguished scientists...from around the world testify that climate change is for real, it has serious and negative consequences, and we damn well better do something about it," Boehlert said.

But by 2013, Republican moderates like Boehlert who accepted climate science were eliminated. Redistricting by both parties—to make red districts redder and blue districts bluer—was partly to blame. But much of the change was due to a systematic effort by conservatives, with significant help from fossil fuel interests that were seeking to stave off policies that might cut into their profits.

The Senate Science Committee's Disappearing Center

Helping the effort was the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, which opened the door to unlimited political spending. The decision empowered hugely wealthy donors like the oil billionaire Koch brothers seeking to shape politics in America. Between 2010 and 2012 alone, individuals and companies in the fossil fuel industry spent an unprecedented $90.5 million to elect friendly Republicans, an increase of 66 percent over the previous two election cycles (compared with $15.7 million they gave to Democrats), according to Center for Responsive Politics data.

Sherwood Boehlert

In the end, nearly a third of the Republicans who sat on the committee in 2006—seven of 24, including Boehlert—were defeated or retired over the next six years in the wake of primary challenges from the right.

The conservative advocacy group, the Club for Growth,financed many of the challenges. The group has a broad low-tax, less-government agenda, but its victims saw the hand of fossil fuel interests at work.

"My most enduring heresy was saying that climate change was real," said Bob Inglis of South Carolina, who became convinced of climate reality on a science committee trip to Antarctica. He lost in 2010 to Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was endorsed by the Club for Growth. "It had appeared that I had crossed to the other side and had become unfaithful to the tribe."

Wayne Gilchrestof Maryland, a science committee Republican defeated in the 2008 primary, believed the conservative activists had a deeper objection than his stand on climate issues. "The foundation upon which their enterprise was built was to select members of Congress that could be told what to do," Gilchrest said. "They wanted a puppet."

The Club for Growth, which spent between $6 million and $22 million each election cycle between 2004 and 2016, did not have to disclose its donors until it established a Super PAC in 2010. But at least$3 million came into the club from the labyrinth Kochnetwork between 2009 and 2015, according to the tax returns of their various nonprofit advocacy groups. And the club's Super PAC disclosures show that its wealthy donors include some heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry and connected to the Koch brothers, like hedge fund manager Paul Singer of Elliott Management, and Quantum Energy, a Houston private equity and venture capital firm specializing in oil and gas.

Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry became the biggest contributor to science committee members, according to Center for Responsive Politics data.

House Science Committee: Follow the Money...

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2/15

mcconnell staff network

When Supreme Court Justice AnthonyKennedy cast the deciding voteto gut a century of campaign finance law, he assured the public that the unlimited corporate spending he was ushering in would “not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” Because those authorized to give and spend unlimited amounts were legally required to remain independent of the politicians themselves, Kennedy reasoned, there was no cause for concern.

Just five years later, in a development that may be surprising only to Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision is reshaping how, how much and to whom money flows in Washington.

How the flood of money released by Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has changed elections has been the subject of much discussion, but the decision’s role in allowing that same money to soak the legislative process has largely gone unreported. According to an extensive review of public documents held by the FEC, the U.S. Senate and the Internal Revenue Service, as well as interviews with lobbyists and policymakers,Kennedy's allegedly independent spending has become increasingly intertwined with lobbying and legislation -- the precise appearance of corruption campaign finance laws were meant to curb.

Politically active nonprofits, known as "dark money" groups for their ability to shield the identity of donors, and super PACs, which take unlimited sums of money but must disclose donors, have become dominated by lobbyists and other political operatives with close ties to leaders in Congress.Meanwhile, businesses with issues before Congress are pumping increasingly more money into the lobbyist-connected organizations.

The Supreme Court initially established a narrow definition of corruption in the 1970s, but Citizens United used it to blow open the gates that had been holding back corporate money. The 2010 decision came as the U.S. legislative system had evolved into a near parliamentary system of party-line voting and expansive party networks extending seamlessly from the Capitol to party headquarters to lobbying firms to outside political groups.Most top congressional legislators now have "leadership teams" -- informal but internally recognized groups of aides-turned-lobbyists who help raise funds.

To the lobbyists working in the system he helped create, Kennedy’s vision of political spending is unrecognizable. "I think Justice Kennedy's view on this was naive at best," one lobbyist told The Huffington Post, reflecting a rare bipartisan consensus. "People are going to do what's allowed under the law."

The Supreme Court majority’s casual dismissal of the possibility that the Citizens United ruling could lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption wasnecessary from a judicial perspective. Citizens United and a subsequent lower court ruling essentially hold that the First Amendment prevents the government from restricting political spending independent of the candidates and parties. Yet the courts had long recognized Congress’ authority to regulate the financing of campaigns and the lobbying process in order to maintain the citizens’ trust in a democratic government. Where the choicehad been between the sanctity of elections on the one hand and an unfettered interpretation of the First Amendment on the other, the courts chose to protect elections -- because without a trusted government, there is no First Amendment to speak of.

Kennedy and the other four justices, therefore, had to insist that independent political spending could not lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption -- no threat of corruption meant no congressional authority to regulate that spending.

It is difficult, however, to look closely at the way laws are being made today without acknowledging at least an appearance of corruption. Congressional aides to whom HuffPost spoke all said that their own members of Congress were certainly not influenced in an untoward way by the corporate funds pumped into efforts to re-elect them, but that it was easy to see why the public might assume that to be the case. Five years later, the judicial logic of Citizens United has unraveled.

Political advisers closely associated with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) serve as both operatives on their behalf and lobbyists for corporate clients with business before Congress. The clients are encouraged to give generously to super PACs associated with the respective lawmakers, according to lobbyists familiar with the widespread strategy.

Trevor Potter, one of the top election lawyers in the country whose clients include Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and comedian Stephen Colbert, warns that this arrangement creates exactly the appearance of corruption that courts have used to justify campaign finance limits.

“It does make a significant difference to have lobbyists involved because then you have the very lobbyists who seek official action from the members being the conduits to the money,” Potter said. “It makes them valuable to their clients because they have a good relationship with the member, and they have a tight relationship with the member because they have access to the money from their clients.”

They're making use of the opportunity.A connected super PAC and nonprofit manned by lobbyists tied to Boehner have collectively received millions from interests in the insurance, drug, energy and other industries. Big-money groups associated with McConnell have been funded by coal companies, insurers and hospitals.Mining and gambling businesses have given directly to the super PAC associated with Reid, which is staffed by two Reid confidantes, one of whom advises the lobby shop that represents those companies while she also prepares to run the senator's 2016 re-election bid. All these companies have hired lobbyists who are connected to those same lawmakers as well as to the big-money groups and who are also working on issues over which Congress has much sway. The groups they fund have spent big to put and keep Boehner, McConnell and Reid in the driver’s seat.

Tony Podesta, a Democratic super lobbyist with the Podesta Group, told HuffPost that he has encouraged his corporate clients to give to super PACs and dark money nonprofits. “It’s unfortunate that we have the decision Citizens United, but as long as that’s the law of the land, then Democrats and Republicans are both active in these kinds of endeavors,” he said.

Speaker John Boehner has close ties to the American Action Network, a dark money nonprofit, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC. These groups raise funds from clients of lobbyists looking to increase their own influence.

In the House of Representatives, Speaker Boehner maintains a tight network of former aides who have decamped to K Street. Through these aides, he is tied to a dark money nonprofit and related super PAC that have spent millions to help him become speaker and to maintain and expand his GOP majority. The House leadership's agenda regularly aligns with that of the clients of the lobbyists who give to these groups.

The two outside groups in the middle of Boehner’s web are the American Action Network, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC operating under AAN’s umbrella.

The board of directors of AAN and Congressional Leadership Fund is lined with lobbyists and influencers including Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck strategic adviser Barry Jackson, a former chief of staff to Boehner who left his office in 2012. Brownstein’s profile of Jackson, who is not registered to lobby, focuses heavily on his congressional and executive branch connections and experience without mention of any particular policy expertise.

Also, Brownstein Hyatt employed former Boehner aide Marc Lampkin as managing director of its Washington lobbying office. His firm bio declares him to be a proud member of “Team Boehner," and he is widely seen as one of the speaker's closest advisers. He is also a lobbyist for a number of interests that contribute to super PACs and nonprofits that help Republicans in elections.

The Apollo Education Group, which owns and operates the for-profit University of Phoenix, has donated $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund since 2012 while employing Lampkin to lobby on behalf of such schools. Boehner and his House Republicans have long been staunch supporters of for-profit universities. In recent years, they have fought back against federal regulations to rein in that industry, which relies hugely on its students receiving federal grants and taxpayer-backed loans while it fails to graduate those same students.

The CEO of pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories, another Lampkin client, gave $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund in 2012. Boehner recently inaugurated a new Abbott factory in his congressional district while opposing changes to tax laws that allowed Abbott to purchase an overseas competitor in 2014 and turn itself into a multinational corporation to avoid U.S. tax payments (the tactic, known as an inversion, has come under increasing scrutiny).

Lampkin and another former Boehner aide, Sam Geduldig, have both registered to lobby for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, a trade group for large insurance companies that has given $185,000 to outside groups supporting Republicans since 2012. PCI’s contributions include $25,000 each to the Congressional Leadership Fund and AAN.

The insurers group also pumped funds into the dark money network run by Steven Law, a member of McConnell’s inner circle and a former general counsel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. PCI gave $75,000 to Crossroads GPS and $25,000 to the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition. Both groups are run by Law and spent millions to re-elect McConnell in 2014. PCI also put money into super PACs supporting two Republicans first elected to the Senate this past November: Joni Ernst of Iowa and David Perdue of Georgia. Their seats were among the handful McConnell needed his party to win in order for him to take the Senate’s top spot.

"PCI participates in the political process like many others and supports pro business and pro property & casualty organizations,” Marguerite Tortorello, PCI's senior vice president for public affairs, said in a statement.

Shortly after the 2014 election, the two top priorities of the insurers group and the broader insurance industry were rolled into one: A provision to roll back capital standards placed on insurance companies by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law was attached to the reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. Although that bill stalled last year, the new Congress in January passed a terrorism insurance reauthorization with the capital standards rollback attached -- with bipartisan support. An amendment from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to strip the rollback measure failed.

The inability to pass legislation was a hallmark of the last Congress. But one area where lawmakers forced swift action wound up being profitable for the super PACs and nonprofits that support them.

In April 2013, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that it would be furloughing air traffic controllers throughout the year due to the automatic budget cuts brought about by sequestration. This would have led to flight delays, lost profits for the airline industry and lost wages for controllers and pilots. Within a week of the announcement, Congress passed legislation to ease the sequester cuts at the FAA.

Lobbying players who pushed Congress to act on the FAA also sent contributions to various outside groups connected to congressional GOP leaders. Airlines for America, the industry’s main trade group, gave $150,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund, $35,000 to the pro-McConnell super PAC Kentuckians for Strong Leadership and $40,000 to Defending Main Street SuperPAC, a group backing moderate Republicans in fights with tea party candidates.

“You can’t have good policy without good candidates and legislation, which is why it’s important to the 2 million people we fly every day and the nearly 600,000 people we employ that we be involved,” Airlines for America spokesman Vaughn Jennings said in a statement.

The lobby group is headed by Nick Calio, a veteran of both Bush administrations, who expressed an interest in increasing the airline industry’s political giving upon taking the helm in 2010.

“You’ve got to be part of the political process, and contributions and political support are part of the political process,” Calio told Politico in 2010. “When you have people who consistently support you on policy issues, they expect you to be part of their political life support system. It’s just that simple.”

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a labor union, also gave $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund and $150,000 to Defending Main Street after Congress ended the sequester-related furloughs. Those contributions were out of the ordinary for the union, which had been a major supporter of Democrats alone. It has given $3.9 million to super PACs backing Democrats.

Calio is deeply enmeshed in the political party machinery, and his group rewards congressional action by making huge contributions to outside groups that directly support lawmakers. What he does not have is a direct relationship with an outside spending group. Other major lobbyists, including heads of trade associations, do.

Take Mike Duncan, who served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2007 to 2009. Following the Citizens United decision, he joined with Karl Rove and other GOP operatives to form the super PAC American Crossroads and the nonprofit Crossroads GPS. He still sits on the board of American Crossroads.

But Duncan is not just a party operative. In 2012, he became head of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a major Washington lobbying arm of the coal and railroad industry. The coalition was in the midst of a massive advertising and pressure campaign in Washington as the Obama administration pushed for new regulations on coal-fired power plants to reduce their pollution.

To further increase its GOP connection, the coal coalition signed up Boehner’s former aide Lampkin to lobby in 2013.

Coal industry companies and executives on the board of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity have contributed more than $10 million to Republican outside groups. Joe Craft and his company Alliance Resource Partners have provided most of this money with contributions totaling nearly $9.4 million. Alpha Natural Resources, Consol Energy and Murray Energy have also chipped in. Additionally, Matthew Rose, the CEO of Burlington North Santa Fe and a member of the coal coalition’s board, gave $25,000 to the super PAC supporting McConnell in 2014. (This is all aside from the hundreds of millions in political spending by the Koch brothers, fossil fuel magnates.)

Republicans have, in turn, become increasingly vocal in their support for the coal industry and their opposition to any rule, regulation or idea -- including belief in climate change driven by human action -- that could harm the industry.

A spokeswoman for the coal coalition said that Duncan separates his work at American Crossroads from that at the lobbying group and does not solicit the latter’s members to give to the former.

The pro-Boehner AAN, the nonprofit parent of the Congressional Leadership Fund, is a hotbed of lobbyist activity. The board currently boasts four registered lobbyists -- former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), former Reps. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) and Vin Weber (R-Minn.), and former RNC official Maria Cino -- and two other employees of lobbying firms -- former Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno and former Boehner aide Barry Jackson.

Past AAN board members include major GOP fundraiser and previously registered lobbyist C. Boyden Gray and former Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Iowa), who is the head of the Credit Union National Association.

“We’re proud to have a distinguished board from business executives to policy leaders to former elected officials -- they’ve been successful in all walks of life and they’re critical to our success,” Dan Conston, spokesman for both AAN and the Congressional Leadership Fund, said in an email. “Do they fundraise for us? Of course. Do they uphold their fiduciary responsibility to us as board members? Of course.”

Crossroads GPS,like its sister super PAC, also maintains connections to K Street through its board. Crossroads board member Sally Vastola, a former staffer for Rep. Reynolds, decamped with her old boss to the law and lobbying firm of Nixon Peabody, where she lobbies for pharmaceutical companies and the student loan giant Sallie Mae.

"Both American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have separate and independent boards whose members do not fundraise for either organization and have a range of work outside their board positions," said Paul Lindsay, communications director for the Crossroads duo.

Lobbyists straddling the party operative-influence peddling line have themselves given more than $1 million to super PACs and nonprofits since the Citizens United decision.

The top lobbyist donor to these groups is Boyden Gray, a top-shelf GOP fundraiser and former AAN board member, whose contributions total $390,000. Gray made contributions to such super PACs as American Crossroads, Freedom PAC and Kentuckians for Strong Leadership. According to lobbyist contribution disclosures, he also gave to dark money groups: $50,000 to Crossroads GPS and $15,000 to Wisconsin Club for Growth as it worked incredibly closely with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) to help him survive a recall election.

"The vast majority of our donors give on the basis of broad philosophical conviction," said Crossroads' Lindsay. "The fact that some have various policy interests should come as no surprise, but those interests have no effect on our activities."

The full record of lobbyists and their clients funding outside groups connected to party leadership is almost certainly obscured by the fact that many of these groups are not required to disclose their donors. Dark money nonprofits like AAN, Crossroads GPS and the Democratic Party group Patriot Majority USA spend huge sums on elections and on attack ads masquerading as issue advocacy. Few of their donors have materialized, but what little has leaked indicates that contributions from clients of party-linked lobbyists and trade associations actively lobbying Congress are common.

AAN has sucked in millions from Washington-based corporate trade groups and corporations with major interests in Congress. Those donations include $6 million from Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and $3.3 million from pharmaceutical giant Aetna. The Alliance for Quality Home Nursing Care chipped in $250,000. Additional funds came from America’s Natural Gas Alliance, the Motion Picture Association of America and the top lobbyist for Health Care Service Corporation.

The Alliance for Quality Home Nursing Care and its affiliated group, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare, have given $2.9 million to outside groups as part of their lobbying campaign to restore Medicare reimbursements for home and hospice care that were cut by the Affordable Care Act. The two groups have hired top lobbyists to help direct their efforts, including Democrat Tony Podesta and Republican Haley Barbour.

Barbour, a former two-term governor of Mississippi and a onetime RNC chairman, is the personification of this cross-pollinating age. He is a powerhouse lobbyist running the BGR Group who is also an adviser to political campaigns and a past fundraiser for American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. One client, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare, gave $500,000 to Crossroads GPS in 2012.

In 2014, Barbour joined hands with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to beat back a tea party primary challenge to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). Cochran had attracted the ire of tea party activists for his support of immigration reform and his long history of earmarking funds to build projects in his impoverished state. To save the six-term senator’s seat, Barbour helped launch the super PAC Mississippi Conservatives with the backing of the chamber and Republican Senate leadership. He chipped in $35,000 of his own money, and Crest Investment Company, one of his clients, sent an additional $50,000. The chamber gave $100,000 to the super PAC and directly spent another $1.2 million to help re-elect Cochran.

Cochran’s eventual victory in a run-off election was a triumphant moment for Barbour, the chamber and Republican leadership. They had beaten back a potential stumbling block to capturing the Senate majority.

The chamber didn’t just support an establishment Republican in Mississippi last year. The larger anti-tea party campaign was chiefly its work. The chamber ran hard against tea party candidates in Kentucky and North Carolina while scaring off potential challengers in West Virginia before they could materialize. In Iowa and Colorado, it found common ground on candidates with national tea party groups.

Of course, beyond being a funder of election ads, the Chamber of Commerce is also the nation’s largest business lobby, generously funded by corporations across America. It employs dozens of Washington lobbyists, including top former staffers for McConnell. And it does not shy away from the implication that its campaign spending is part of its lobbying operation.

"Our deal is to have a political program so that there is a hammer, and there is a consequence, and there is leverage and it's aggressive," Rob Engstrom, the chamber’s national political director, told CNN in 2014.

Once Republicans won the majority in the Senate, they immediately talked up the chamber’s priorities, from the Keystone XL pipeline to tax reform and pro-corporate trade policies. Newly elected Republican senators backed by the chamber announced their support for immigration reform, which the chamber strongly favors, and increased transportation and infrastructure spending, a major chamber wish opposed by the GOP’s tea party wing.

As noted, a former general counsel for the Chamber of Commerce and McConnell insider, Law, now runs American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. For his own re-election, the new Senate majority leader is tightly bound to the Crossroads duo and two state groups, Kentuckians for Strong Leadership and Kentucky Opportunity Coalition. Former McConnell aide Scott Jennings operates as the public face of the latter two organizations, which are also headed by Law.

Soon after the 2014 victory, McConnell and Law announced the creation of yet another super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, which will raise funds to maintain the new GOP majority. The formation of the group echoes the big-money strategy used by now-Minority Leader Reid to keep Senate Democrats in power for the previous four years.

Lobbyists and their clients have poured money into a super PAC and nonprofit run by former aides of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid as they seek legislative action from his office. (Photo: Benjamin Lowy/Getty Images)

Indeed, Democrats have been tapping the post-Citizens United nexus of super PACs, former leadership aides and lobbying groups, too. Reid’s network is well-connected.

Rebecca Lambe, the adviser most closely associated with Reid’s re-election in 2010 and his coming bid in 2016, is employed by the lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates -- as is former senior Reid aide, Kai Anderson. Lambe began work at Cassidy in early 2011. She is also the treasurer of Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aimed at electing Senate Democrats. The latter group was founded in 2011 by Lambe and Susan McCue, Reid’s former chief of staff and longtime confidante. McCue, who is president of Senate Majority PAC, is also connected to Patriot Majority USA, a dark money group with a similar aim.

Since the Citizens United decision in January 2010, lobbyists at and clients of Cassidy & Associates have given $675,000 to Senate Majority PAC and affiliated groups. Another $1.66 million has come from those who attended super PAC strategy sessions hosted by Lambe, including lobbyists and clients of other lobbyists, some of whom are other former Reid aides.

Lambe’s connection to Reid is an asset to Cassidy, and the firm makes no bones about it. Her Cassidy website bio is rich with details about her ongoing connections to Reid, and her relationship with the top Senate Democrat has been a selling point in meetings with prospective clients. At one pitch meeting in May 2013, for instance, Lambe was described as both a senior Cassidy staffer and Reid’s top political strategist, according to a source at the meeting.

It’s common for lobbyists to reference their ties to powerful politicians earned through past service, but ongoing service is unusual. A second source in the room recalled Lambe being mentioned as a Cassidy staffer who would be available to the prospective client, but couldn’t recall how she was specifically identified with regard to Reid. “Of course, her reputation precedes her,” the second source said.

In 2012, her company bio (accessed through the Internet Archive) said, “Lambe is one of the nation’s top political strategists. … Building on the highly successful model in Nevada, Lambe recently led the effort to create Majority PAC [now Senate Majority PAC], an unprecedented, independent effort to protect the Democratic Majority in the U.S. Senate in 2012. She currently serves as a Senior Advisor and Strategist to the newly formed SuperPAC.”

Tom Alexander, a spokesman for Cassidy, said that “there is nothing unusual about promoting the background and experience of your team. Rebecca does not lobby for us; rather, we periodically seek her counsel as we develop effective strategies for our clients.”

Lambe has been a liaison to K Street Democrats on Senate Majority PAC’s plans and fundraising needs. She led a presentation in June 2013 about the super PAC before some of the top Democratic lobbyists and lawmakers in Washington. Attendees included Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and lobbyists from firms whose clients gave to the super PAC as well as to Patriot Majority USA.

“She’s a very smart political operative, and I would support anything that she does,” Podesta, another attendee, said of Lambe. That event, he said, was intended “to encourage [the lobbyists] to contribute and to encourage them to encourage others to contribute.”

Lambe is also closely involved with what’s known as the Clean Energy Project. McCue, the Senate Majority PAC co-founder, sits on the project's board, and Cassidy & Associates is a top sponsor. Lambe herself helps organize its annual National Clean Energy Summit, held in Las Vegas.

The summit in his home state serves as a venue for Reid to showcase the alternative energy industry in Nevada and provides space for energy and vehicle companies to promote their products. One of the repeat sponsors of the summit is Cassidy client and casino operator MGM Resorts International, which is also a heavy donor to Senate Majority PAC.

The Cassidy firm and its clients generally have been an oft-tapped resource for Reid and Senate Majority PAC. In 2012, Gerald Cassidy, the firm’s founder, gave $50,000 to the super PAC. (Cassidy, who is officially retired from the firm, is known as the father of the earmark.) Michael Kowalski, then CEO of Cassidy client Tiffany & Co., gave $125,000 in the 2012 elections and another $100,000 in 2014. In 2010, MGM Resorts gave $300,000 to Patriot Majority, then a super PAC, supporting Reid’s re-election. Newmont Mining Corporation put $100,000 into Senate Majority PAC in 2012 and hired Cassidy the next year.

Alexander, spokesman for Cassidy & Associates, said the firm does not comment on contributions made or solicited by its employees and would not say whether the firm asked clients to give to super PACs.

The $225,000 contributed by Kowalski came as Tiffany & Co. was engaged in a lobbying campaign, alongside a coalition of environmental and fiscal watchdog groups, to update a key federal mining law from 1872. The company employed former Reid aide Anderson to lobby on its behalf.

After Democrats won control of both houses of Congress in 2006, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) and other congressmen pushed a bill to require mining companies operating on public lands to pay royalties to the government and to abide by stricter environmental regulations. Rahall told USA Today in 2007 that everyone in the House would be for reform, but that Reid, then the Senate majority leader, posed an obstacle.

“Well, obviously, the man in control over there is the gentleman from the largest gold-producing state,” Rahall said. Nevada is one of the world’s top producers of gold, and Reid, whose father was a gold miner, is an ardent supporter of and regular opponent of new regulation on the industry.

A mining reform bill passed the House in 2008 but went nowhere in the Senate, where Reid opposed the level of royalties, among other provisions. No such bill has passed either chamber since. Reid never stated outright that he was against the mining reform, though he said it must be crafted appropriately to satisfy the industry and protect mining jobs.

The continued debate has helped elicit further contributions from both the mining industry and consumer-facing companies like Tiffany, which are hoping to avoid customer backlash over ties between their products and polluting mines. Environmental groups have already launched campaigns targeting the sale of jewelry using materials from mines with poor pollution records.

Tiffany’s reform stance, in particular, stems from its past failure to get in front of consumer fury over the sale of “blood diamonds” -- diamonds sourced from war-torn African countries -- in the 2000s. CEO Kowalski told the Las Vegas Sun in 2007 that his company’s involvement in the issue “has never been ulterior or anything more than corporate self-interest.”

As Tiffany became more involved in the issue, Kowalski’s donations increased. Prior to 2007, he had made few contributions. But since 2008 he has given more than $160,000 to Democratic Party candidates and party committees, including $7,200 to Reid’s 2010 campaign. This was on top of the $225,000 to Senate Majority PAC.

Tiffany has been unable to secure a legislative win despite its heavy giving. Sometimes lobbyists squeeze corporations for money knowing their goal will remain elusive.

Anderson, the former Reid aide-turned-Cassidy staffer, also represents Newmont Mining, one of the top American gold mining companies operating in Nevada, but that lobbying has a different focus: federal efforts to preserve the greater sage grouse. The company fears that protections for the imperiled bird under the Endangered Species Act could interfere with its mining operations. The Fish and Wildlife Service is supposed to make a decision on whether to list the bird by September 2015.

Cassidy was hired in July 2013, as the Bureau of Land Management was evaluating threats to sage grouse habitat in Nevada. The BLM analysis looked like it might jeopardize a new gold mine that Newmont had proposed.

Reid worked with Nevada’s junior senator, Republican Dean Heller, and in December of that year they offered draft legislation that would allow the state to take the lead on protecting the greater sage grouse. Their proposal would have designated certain areas for the birds, preventing an Endangered Species Act listing and leaving other areas open to development by mining operators like Newmont. That bill never passed, but language barring the Interior Department from moving forward on the greater sage grouse was part of the Reid-supported spending package in December 2014.

Anderson is also registered to lobby for MGM Resorts, one of the largest casino operators in the world. Reid is an unabashed champion of his state’s gaming industry and, as Reid defenders note, would go to bat for it whether contributions were made or not.

Still, those contributions have been made. In 2010, MGM Resorts pumped $300,000 into the Patriot Majority super PAC to help Reid defeat Republican challenger Sharron Angle. After his re-election, Reid attempted to attach language to a must-pass tax bill to open the door to online gambling in the United States. This measure was carefully tailored to provide the very first online gambling licenses to companies like MGM and Harrah’s Entertainment (now Caesar’s Entertainment), which also gave to Patriot Majority. (Reid now opposes Internet gaming -- a switch that, some speculate, is aimed at deterring casino magnate Sheldon Adelson from spending money to defeat the senator in 2016.)

Reid also came to MGM Resorts’ aid when a major development project with Dubai World faced financing problems during the global economic crisis. Reid helped persuade bankers to provide funding. He has said he considers the salvaging of the project, and the 22,000 Nevada jobs connected to it, among his most significant home state achievements.

While Cassidy & Associates offers the strongest linkage between Reid’s office, Senate Majority PAC and lobbying clients seeking favors on Capitol Hill, the firm is not the only K Street denizen with ties to the super PAC. Many of the lobbyists who attended the 2013 presentation by Lambe had or would make five-figure contributions to the super PAC. In some cases, the clients of those lobbyists gave, too.

The Air Line Pilots Association, a Podesta Group client, gave $100,000 to Senate Majority PAC in 2014. Another Podesta client, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare (then known as Home Health Advocacy Coalition), gave $125,000 in 2014.

These lobbyists’ clients also gave to Patriot Majority USA, the related dark money group. According to tax returns, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare and yet another Podesta client, the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care, gave a combined $1.5 million to the nonprofit from 2011 to 2012.

“I’m a supporter of both groups and urge people to support both groups,” said Podesta, who personally contributed $50,000 to Senate Majority PAC in 2012.

Before there was a Senate Majority PAC, there was another Democratic nonprofit acting as a key node in the flow of money from lobbying interests to help elect helpful politicians. Citizens for Strength & Security Action Fund, and its later iterations, provides what may be the clearest example of how outside spending groups are used by lobbyists to curry favor with leaders in Congress.

The story begins back when Congress debated and passed the Affordable Care Act. An immense legislative accomplishment for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, the law was also the subject of a massive, still-ongoing lobbying campaign. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent tens of millions of dollars trying to defeat the reform bill, much of it provided by America’s Health Insurance Plans, a lobbying association for health insurers. The chamber also spent millions more trying to defeat reform proponents in the 2010 election.

The preeminent interest group spreading money around Washington on health care reform, however, was the pharmaceutical industry. Under the stewardship of former Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) -- whose leap from writing the Medicare prescription drug law to lobbying on K Street led to an eponymous rules change in Congress -- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America worked behind the scenes with the White House and then-Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to advance the legislation. PhRMA’s chief requirements: that the new law not reverse the ban on re-importing drugs and not grant authority to Medicare, Medicaid or any new entity to negotiate lower drug prices.

In return for abandoning those two longstanding Democratic Party goals, Democrats would get PhRMA’s support, which included directing millions of dollars to outside nonprofits to pay for electoral and advocacy ads. Along with other industry groups like the Federation of American Hospitals and reform proponents like Families USA, PhRMA launched Americans for Stable Quality Care in 2009. The new dark-money nonprofit raised and spent $46 million that year to fund a barrage of ads backing Obama’s health bill.

And then, two months before the law passed in March 2010, the Supreme Court handed down the Citizens United decision, allowing corporations to fund electoral efforts through nonprofits like Americans for Stable Quality Care. The group quickly changed its name to Citizens for Strength & Security Action Fund and transformed into an overtly political operation.

PhRMA pumped $2.5 million into that group in 2010 to help pay for ads supporting the election of Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.). Their seats were vital to maintaining the Democratic majority in the Senate.

The pharmaceutical lobby also put $2 million into another Democratic nonprofit called America’s Families First, which operated as a donor fund and redistributed what it raised. It gave $2.3 million to the get-out-the-vote group America Votes, $1.5 million to Democratic super PACs, $461,000 to Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund and $370,000 to Citizens for Strength & Security Action Fund, among others. All of these named groups were active in supporting Democrats in the 2010 election.

Finally, PhRMA boosted Sen. Baucus, the main congressional architect of health care reform, by sending $500,000 to an obscure group called Montana Growth. In 2013, the little known group funneled $400,000 of that money over to the Stronger Montana Fund and Montana Hunters & Anglers Action, both Democratic dark-money nonprofits, to support a possible re-election campaign by Baucus.

The Stronger Montana Fund put $275,000 into a pro-Baucus issue ad early in 2013, but Baucus ultimately chose not to run again. He has since been named U.S. ambassador to China by President Obama.

One big-money Democratic operative said that while both sides accept this new corporate cash, Democrats have a harder time getting it -- there are only so many PhRMA deals on the table.

Republicans have been increasingly moving their fundraising and spending away from super PACs and toward dark money groups, which allow them to conceal the source of the money.

The Democratic operative guessed that at this point, Republicans may be taking in 100 corporate dollars for every one that reaches Democrats. "We don't really know -- it's at least 10-to-1." She added, "The truth is Democrats don't get much [501(c)(4)] corporate money, and that's because their interests often aren't aligned. I'd gladly have c4s shut down -- that would be a huge boon for us."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/26/citizens-united-congress_n_6723540.html

SJ 19 scholar testimony: http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/06-03-14RaskinTestimony.pdf

JH: just one year after their Citizens United decision unleashed CEOs to be able to roll truckloads of their shareholders' funds into our elections (without asking those shareholders for permission or even informing them after the fact), that same five assaulted our democracy again. Their 2011 verdict in the Arizona Free Enterprise Club case increased the volume of CorporateSpeak in elections by decreasing the speech of non-rich candidates. Specifically, they rejected the will of Arizonans who had voted to provide public funds for candidates who are willing to forego all special-interest money. This system gave the political ideas of the non-wealthy a chance to be heard when up against the multimillion-dollar PR megaphones of the Koch brothers, Karl Rove, BigOil, the Walmart heirs, and other super-wealthy oligarchs. Public financing of elections was successfully widening public debate and freeing up political speech, so the five corporate supremists stepped in to kill it, absurdly declaring that such laws give an "unfair advantage" to little-guy campaigns.

Next came this year's McCutcheon opinion, in which the same five blew the lid off the limits on money that an individual can pour on candidatesduring any given election cycle. The limit had been $123,000--high enough that only about 600 people out of our 330 million reached that maximum in 2012. The Court's narrow majority lifted the allowable total for one person's election-year spending to a stunning $5.9 million. That empowers a handful of the richest of rich donors--even fewer than 600--to overwhelm the political voices of millions of common citizens, all in the name of free speech. Adding to this absurdity, this five-man wrecking crew blithely declares in its McCutcheon ruling that even transactions that appear to be obvious conflicts of interest are permissible (e.g., a CEO can give $25,000 to the head of a congressional committee--the same person who a week later can put a bill on the floor to benefit the CEO's corporation). Such corrupt transactions apparently "do not justify" putting restrictions on campaign contributions. Instead, the wily ones ruled that the only donor-to-donee corruption that can be regulated is outright quid pro quo bribery.

prop 49? 7/3 On Monday, thanks to overwhelming grassroots support, the California Assembly passed the Overturn Citizens United Act by a vote of 49-22! Governor Jerry Brown now has only a few weeks to sign the bill -- which will put it on the ballot for voters to decide this November.

yikes, CU meets local ordinances:

Early in April, coal industry executive Shaun McCutcheon won big when the Supreme Courtswept away limits on how much money wealthy donors can contribute to federal political campaigns. But in St. Louis, Mo., coal interests are trying to prevent people from even voting.

This story began when ordinary citizensjoined together and took a stand against both climate change and their city’s destructive practice of granting enormous tax breaks to big business while cutting funding for public services. They talked to thousands of residents who were upset that St. Louis keeps giving away tens of millions of dollars of badly needed public money to Peabody Energy (the world’s largest private-sector coal company) and the lobbyists, banks, and law firms that enable it. And after hearing over and over again that “there oughta be a law” against corporate welfare for polluters, they did what we learned in civics class: they wrote a law that wouldban public financial incentives to unsustainable energy producers and their major business partners.

They didn’t just write the law: Under the banner of **Take Back St. Louis**, they walked door-to-door, talking to friends, neighbors, and strangers about their idea. They collected over 22,000 signatures — more than 10 percent of all the voters in St. Louis — on a petition for a ballot initiative. The city’s elections boardverified the signatures, and began preparing to print ballots.

This is where you might expect to hear about a vigorous election campaign, with arguments from both sides put to the voters, a spirited debate about the future of St. Louis and our planet, and finally, the voters making their choice at the ballot box. You might even expect to hear about the coal company spending millions of dollars to fight the initiative in the days before the vote.

But you’d be wrong: There was no vote. Instead, thecoal company’s lawyers rushedto court and asked a judge to block the election on the grounds that the law would unfairly discriminate against the coal company and its business partners, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. The judge agreed, and cited the Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United decision for the theory that business entities “are entitled to constitutional protection as citizens.” He issued a preliminary injunction blocking the vote, and scheduled a trial for March 31.

At the trial, Take Back St. Louis provided evidence about the environmental damage caused by burning coal, and the damage to the fabric of St. Louis caused by the city’s penchant for giving away public dollars to big business. The other side didn’t put any witnesses on the stand. The judge may make his final decision any day now.

Not everyone will agree that this ballot initiative is the best policy, and that’s fine. The Take Back St. Louis folks think they can convince a majority of St. Louis voters, and they’re willing to take on the coal interests in a contest for votes. But first, the court has to get out of the way. Now that the judge has the evidence, he has a chance to get this right, lift his injunction, and let the vote proceed.

Whether or not you think that giving tax breaks to coal companies and their business partners is a good idea, we should all agree that this is a question for voters, not judges. Because it was bad enough when coal companies could simply open their checkbooks to flood elections with unlimited spending; now they won’t even let people vote.

Ron Fein is the Legal Director forFree Speech For People, an organization dedicated to challenging the misuse of corporate power and restoring republican democracy to the people.

http://grist.org/business-technology/do-coal-companies-have-more-rights-than-voters/

Updating Disclosure for the New Era of Independent Spending

by Richard Briffault, Columbia Law School, April 16, 2012

Author relies on data from FollowTheMoney.org and OpenSecrets.org for analyzing post-Citizens United v. FEC explosive increase in independent spending (<$17m in 2002 Congressional elections to $290m in 2010), and ensuing disclosure issues. He argues that CU played a major role in giving rise to the disclosure problem, and outlines how that decision also provides the doctrinal means for its solution.

Read Now:Updating Disclosure for the New Era of Independent Spending 543 kB

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reverse the effects of Citizens United was pretty exciting even back when it was just the seven of us -- me; fellow Democratic Senators Sherrod Brown, Mark Begich, Kay Hagan, and Tom Udall; and Democratic Congressmen Bruce Braley and Gary Peters.

Conservative group Citizens United gave at least $13,500 to four of the dissidents in the third quarter of this year -- $5,000 apiece to Amash and DeSantis on Sept. 30 and $2,400 to Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) on Sept. 24 -- the day Duncan publicly cheered Cruz's quasi-filibuster attempt to stop the Senate from considering a budget bill that didn't defund the Affordable Care Act. The group also gave $1,000 to Gohmert on July 3.

montana: The Montana Supreme Court rules 5-2 in the case of Western Tradition Partnership v. Bullock that a century-old law prohibits corporate spending in state and federal elections conducted within the state. The ruling seems to challenge the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling (see January 21, 2010). The case stems from a challenge by a “social welfare organization,” Western Tradition Partnership (WTP, which changed its name to American Tradition Partnership after the original lawsuit was filed), joined by two other corporate entities, to Montana’s 1912 Corrupt Practices Act (CPA). The law banned corporate spending in elections, after two out-of-state copper industry magnates attempted to “buy” the Montana legislature by pouring money into the 1894 state elections. The law declares that “corporations may not make… an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political committee that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party.”

The Montana Supreme Court finds that the CPA is needed to ensure the integrity of Montana’s elections, and to make sure that citizens and not corporations are running the state. However, the Court acknowledges that its ruling conflicts with the Citizens United decision, though it says that the Citizens United decision allows for restrictions on corporate political speech if the government can demonstrate that the restrictions are as minimal as possible to achieve a compelling governmental interest. The Montana Court rules that because of Montana’s history of corporate vote-buying and the narrow restrictions of the CPA, the law should stand. It also notes that Western Tradition Partnership argued in its original suit that disclosure laws, as opposed to outright bans, would serve the public interest and guard against corruption; however, the organization is currently involved in another lawsuit in which it argues that those same disclosure laws are unconstitutional restrictions of the freedom of speech.

[WESTERN TRADITION PARTNERSHIP V. BULLOCK ET AL, 12/30/2011 ; LOS ANGELES TIMES, 1/4/2012; REUTERS, 6/25/2012; OMB WATCH, 6/25/2012; WASHINGTON POST, 6/25/2012;OMB WATCH, 7/10/2012]

Even one of the dissenters, Justice James C. Nelson, disagrees with the Citizens United characterizations that corporations are legally people, writing: “Corporations are not persons. Human beings are persons, and it is an affront to the inviolable dignity of our species that courts have created a legal fiction which forces people—human beings—to share fundamental, natural rights with soulless creatures of government. Worse still, while corporations and human beings share many of the same rights under the law, they clearly are not bound equally to the same codes of good conduct, decency, and morality, and they are not held equally accountable for their sins. Indeed, it is truly ironic that the death penalty and hell are reserved only to natural persons.” WTP’s director Donald Ferguson says after the decision that the case hinges on freedom of speech (see January 21, 2010): “The current state law says that if you own a business and you would like to use the resources of the business to speak out about how you see the law, you essentially have to ask prior permission from the state. Under the current regime, the state regulatory agencies and the newspapers basically have a monopoly on information. We’re simply trying to put more free speech in motion.” [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 1/4/2012; HUFFINGTON POST, 1/4/2012]

Legal Scholars Anticipate Montana Ruling to be Overturned - Paul Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center calls the Montana high court’s ruling “an antidote to the crabbed view of corruption” displayed in Citizens United. Ryan, like many others, anticipates the US Supreme Court will overturn today’s ruling. [HUFFINGTON POST, 1/4/2012] One of those others is law professor Richard Hasen, who writes: “[I]f the Court were being honest in Citizens United, it would have said something like: ‘We don’t care whether or not independent spending can or cannot corrupt; the First Amendment trumps this risk of corruption.’ But the Court didn’t say that, because it would have faced even greater criticism than it already has. So it dressed up its value judgment (no corruption ‘implied in law’) as a factual statement. The Montana Supreme Court called SCOTUS [the US Supreme Court] on this. And when SCOTUS reverses, the disingenuousness of this aspect of CU will be on full display for all.” Hasen is referring to the Court’s finding in Citizens United that independent spending in elections does not legally imply corruption. [RICK HASEN, 1/1/2012]

Appeal to Supreme Court - Attorneys for WTP and the other corporate plaintiffs will appeal to the US Supreme Court on the grounds that Montana is bound by theCitizens United decision and that the decision applies to state as well as federal elections. Attorney James Bopp, in filing the appeal, will say: “If Montana can ban core political speech because of Montana’s unique characteristics, free speech will be seriously harmed. Speakers will be silenced because of corruption by others over a century ago.” The US Supreme Court will quickly issue a stay of that decision. [REUTERS, 6/25/2012; OMB WATCH, 6/25/2012] When the case reaches the US Supreme Court, the name of the plaintiff will change into “American Tradition Partnership,” and the Court’s documentation will reflect that change. The Court will overrule the Montana decision (see June 25, 2012). After the decision, American Tradition Partnership’s Web site will disappear, but the liberal accountability organization SourceWatch will describe the organization’s parent, the American Tradition Institute, as described in the group’s mission statement: “a public policy research and educational foundation… founded in 2009 to help lead the national discussion about environmental issues, including air and water quality and regulation, responsible land use, natural resource management, energy development, property rights, and free-market principles of stewardship.” ATI and its affiliates are pro-development and against expanded environmental regulation, according to SourceWatch’s documentation, made up of “a broader network of groups with close ties to energy interests that have long fought greenhouse gas regulation.” [SOURCEWATCH, 2012]

Entity Tags: American Tradition Institute, American Tradition Partnership, Donald Ferguson, James C. Nelson, 1912 Corrupt Practices Act (Montana), SourceWatch, US Supreme Court, Paul S. Ryan, Montana Supreme Court, James Bopp, Jr, Richard L. HasenTimeline Tags: Civil Liberties

mcChesney dollarocracy: rfk says CU completes hostile takeover of gov by corpsp6 ecowach oct 2012

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aspen?

Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have attended these events. (According to Salon, "Thomas claimed he just made "a brief drop-by" at the Koch brothers' January 2008 Palm Springs political retreat to give a talk; in fact he was reimbursed for four days of “transportation, meals and accommodations” by the Federalist Society.^[56]"). The attendance of Thomas and Scalia has sparked debate over judicial ethics and the2010Citizens United decision.^[57] Common Cause filed a petition with the Justice Department in January 2011 alleging a conflict of interest for these Justices, as David and Charles Koch operate foundations that contribute to political groups, which might benefit from relaxed campaign finance rules. ^[58] Common Cause has also noted that the Cato Institute, which Charles Koch founded, filed an amicus brief in Citizens United opposing campaign finance. ^[59] The Center for Competitive Politics also filed a brief in the case; the Center is headed by Bradley Smith, who is affiliated with the Institute for Humane Studies where Charles Koch is Chair of the board and funder. ^[60] SW ^koch ^ind

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Maine became the 13th state in the nation to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Twenty-five House Republicans (in the state House) and five Senate Republicans joined Democrats to “call upon each Member of the Maine Congressional Delegation to actively support and promote in Congress an amendment to the United States Constitution on campaign finance.”

Maine joins West Virginia, Colorado, Montana, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, Rhode Island, Maryland, Vermont, New Mexico and Hawaii in calling for that Constitutional amendment. Which means momentum:

===

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26315908/vp/51837416#51824772 (ingram question inhofe)

email blast that BO wrecking economy and superrich pulling $ from mkt on day Dow? hit record 1500 3 days cf TPM

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180 (on 180 ?) 12/6/11: at heritage http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/huntsman-reverses-stance-_n_1132156.html

Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor and current Republican presidential candidate, earned accolades from environmental advocates earlier this year for denouncing his fellow presidential contenders -- chiefly Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann -- for their regressive views on matters of science, including human-induced global warming.

"When you make comments that fly in the face of what 98 out of 100 climate scientists have said, when you call into question the science of evolution -- " said Huntsman during an early September debate. "All I'm saying is that in order for the Republican party to win, we can't run from science."

Now it appears that Huntsman, a former U.S. ambassador to China who has been trailing badly in the polls, is recalibrating his own thoughts on the science behind global warming.

GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman expressed skepticism about the science on climate change, so now all GOP candidates are on the record as doubting either that the planet is clearly warming, or that people are responsible for most of the warming.

Of all the GOP candidates, Huntsman had been the most supportive of action on climate change: in 2007, as governor of Utah, he signed up his state for a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions.

There has been anincrease in climate skepticism in the past year and a growing reluctance to say anything about climate, especially among Republicans. The turning point--argued the National Journal'scover story, "Heads in the Sand"--was the 2010 Supreme Court decision that lifted restrictions on campaign spending and boosted so-called super political action committees (super PACs) that can take unlimited funds.

The deniers haven't won yet, though, argued Bill Chameides of Duke University. Most Americans accept the basics of climate change, more investment went into green energy than fossil fuels in 2010, and some of the biggest energy companies--such as ExxonMobil--affirm that climate change is real.

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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=:{American_Tradition_Institute:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:

THIS INCLUDES CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

in favor: Roberts, kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, Alito

opposed: A dissenting opinion written by Justice Stevens was joined by Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor.

===

Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a new case — McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.

The McCutcheon case attempts to undermine the total combined contributions limit for individuals (already set at tens of thousands of dollars), which will open a whole new floodgate of cash into our electoral system reserved only for the wealthy.

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kochs claim rosa parks http://www.prwatch.org/node/11946

gp bbb: coalition for child fut w/ CU helped newt (w/ hit ads?) : demo child molester, bill yellowtail convicted felon and wife beater, pushpoll senate kansas jewess; 29 vulnerable demos targetted, 12 lost, some by less than 200 votes, incl 2 above 90; dir says forced to sign over 700K blank checks; triad; CU also laundred $, called a coincidence when called on it 91; fred thompson started to go after 3; CU foster friess and triad koch; got gig after red october; gop leaders took his subpoena power 93 Trent lott; no witnesses

===

superpacs?

propublica overview and update: http://www.propublica.org/article/flood-of-secret-campaign-cash-its-not-all-citizens-united

The emergence of nonprofits as the leading conduit for anonymous spending in this year's presidential campaign is often attributed to the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, which opened the money spigot, allowing corporations and unions to buy ads urging people to vote for or against specific candidates.

But a closer look shows that there are several reasons that tens of millions of dollars of secret money are flooding this year's campaign. Actions — and inaction — by both the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service have contributed just as much to the flood of tens of millions of dollars of secret money into the 2012 campaign. Congress did not act on a bill that would have required disclosure after Citizens United and other court rulings opened the door to secret political spending.

To understand how all this happened, it's worth returning to Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion in Citizens United, and the political system the court envisioned. In the decision's key finding, Kennedy and four other justices said the First Amendment entitled corporations and unions to the same unlimited rights of political speech and spending as any citizen.

But in a less-noticed portion of the ruling, Kennedy and seven of his colleagues upheld disclosure rules and emphasized the role of transparency. Undue corporate or union influence on elections, he wrote, could be addressed by informed voters and shareholders who would instantly access campaign finance facts from their laptops or smart phones.

"With the advent of the Internet," Kennedy wrote, "prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters."

If a company wasted money on politics, the justices agreed, its shareholders could use the publicly available information to "determine whether their corporation's political speech advances the corporation's interest in making profits." Separately, the sunshine of public disclosure will let "citizens see whether elected officials are 'in the pocket' of so-called moneyed interests."

"The First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way," Kennedy concluded. "This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages."

A very different system has taken shape. As our reporting this week showed, money for political ads is pouring into non-profits ostensibly dedicated to promoting social welfare. These groups are paying for many of the negative ads clogging the airwaves, but are not disclosing their donors.

As a result, it's entirely unclear whether these ads are being paid for by unions and corporations empowered by Citizens United or by wealthy individuals.

Separately, corporations have resisted calls to list their donations to political social welfare nonprofits or other political spending. So far, the Securities and Exchange Commission has not responded to a rulemaking petition asking for it to develop rules to require public companies to disclose that spending.

The Supreme Court's opening of the door to hefty flows of secret money began years before Citizens United. In a 2007 case (PDF) involving a nonprofit called Wisconsin Right to Life, the justices ruled that unions and corporations could buy ads that mentioned a candidate in the weeks before an election as long as the commercials stopped short of directly advocating the candidate's election or defeat. Even if these ads, known as "electioneering communications," clearly attacked the positions of one candidate, they were permissible unless they were "susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate."

The flood began and the identities of hardly any of the donors were disclosed. The reason? A decision by the FEC, the oversight panel with three Republicans and three Democrats who frequently deadlock.

After Wisconsin Right to Life, the FEC told social welfare nonprofits that they had to disclose only if the donors specifically earmarked the money for political ads. "It proved to be the exception that swallowed the rule," said Paul S. Ryan, general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit, non-partisan group that tracks campaign finance. The day the FEC adopted this rule, Ryan wrote on his blog that it would allow massive amounts of secret money into politics. He proved correct.

In 2006, ads bought by groups that didn't disclose their donors amounted to less than 2 percent of outside spending, excluding party committees, research by the :{Center for Responsive Politics}: shows. By 2008, that number hit 25 percent; by 2010, more than 40 percent.

All of this raises an intriguing question: Was Kennedy aware when he drafted the January 2010 Citizens United opinion that nonprofits were being widely used to avoid public disclosure of political spending?

At the least, critics say, Kennedy was poorly informed.

"Justice Kennedy was living in a fantasy land," said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor at Stetson University College of Law who tracks campaign finance issues. "I wish the world he envisaged exists. It doesn't."

Instead, this is the disclosure world that exists: Someone who gives up to $2,500 to the campaign of President Barack Obama or challenger Mitt Romney will have his or her name, address and profession listed on the FEC website for all to see. But that same person can give $1 million or more to a social welfare group that buys ads supporting or attacking those same candidates and stay anonymous.

This year, a federal judge struck down the FEC rule stemming from Wisconsin Right to Life. The FEC announced in July that major donors to electioneering communications — ads that focus on issues without directly advocating for candidates — would have to be named.

Already, groups are looking for work-arounds. They're running different kinds of ads. Some will name other social welfare nonprofits as their donors.

The loose oversight by the FEC helped bring so much anonymous money into campaign finance. But no one expects the commission to take a more assertive role anytime soon. Dan Backer, a lawyer who represents several conservative nonprofits, likened the deadlocked agency to a "cute bunny” while referring to the IRS as a "500-pound gorilla.”

The IRS or Congress are more plausible avenues for change, experts say. Ryan said he was hopeful that Congress and the IRS might some day limit ads from groups that don't disclose their donors. The 2012 campaign, though, appears to be a lost cause. "I think this election will be mired and perhaps overwhelmed by secret money," Ryan said.

reports and actions don't match? http://www.propublica.org/article/how-nonprofits-spend-millions-on-elections-and-call-it-public-welfare

CU http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/states-struggle-to-find-way-in-a-post-citizens-united-world

States Struggle to Find Way in a Post-Citizens United World

July 31, 2012

by Clark Taylor

In Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court paved the way for unprecedented amounts of outside campaign spending by powerful interests. As a result, billionaires like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers have pledged to spend up to $400 million in an all-out effort to ensure that the voices of the richest few are heard the loudest.

The numbers support the trend. Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at University of California, Irvine, says outside campaign spending through March 8 amounts to more than $88 million for federal elections. This represents a significant contrast to the $37.5 million in 2004 and $14.2 million in 2000. The growth is even starker in mid-term years as the same spending jumped from $1.8 million in 2006 to $15.8 million in 2010.

Perhaps most disconcerting, this regime has led to a situation in which the superrich can spend more and more on elections without any disclosure. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), in testimony before a Senate committee, claimed that there were at least 23 families worth over $1 billion who have given more than $250,000 in campaign contributions this cycle. Just 196 Americans have given more than 80 percent of the total money donated to super PACs.

Groups and individuals have proposed efforts to help blunt the or counter powerful interests seeking to sway elections. Professor Lawrence Lessig has advocated for a series of citizen conventions to craft a constitutional amendment. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has called for a constitutional amendment. The group Free Speech for People also proposes a constitutional amendment. Jeff Clements, co-founder and president of the group, stated in written testimony to the Senate, that a constitutional amendment was needed to restore congressional power over campaign finance regulation. Perhaps the closest Congress has come to reform was the DISCLOSE ACT, which would have required that independent groups disclose those donors who give more than $10,000. Though the bill received support from a majority of the Senate, Republicans blocked the measure using a procedural move.

But states also face growing challenges to ensure their elections are not bought by the superrich. The National Institute on Money in State Politics says that approximately $623M has been raised by candidates and committees for state offices so far this cycle. That number is in comparison to $2.9 billion which has been raised by federal campaigns, parties, and super PACs through March.

In spite of the Supreme Court’s decision to summarily reverse a century old Montana law put in place to protect the citizens of Montana from outright corruption at the hands of mining magnates, some states are forging ahead to fight for workable solutions. So far, 19 states have passed laws requiring more disclosure since Citizens United. Other states have eliminated limits, while others have no limits, and others still have limits in place only for corporations and unions.

Other states are finding it more difficult to forge a path forward. In Connecticut, Governor Malloy (D) vetoed a bill that would have required disclosure of campaign contributions. Though Malloy claimed to be for transparency, in his veto message he argued that the bill likely violated the Constitution in light of Citizens United. The business community applauded the veto.

Perhaps the most glaring example of a state struggling to find a path forward is Illinois. Earlier this month Governor Quinn (D) signed a law that eliminated campaign contribution limits. The law repealed another measure which had capped campaign contributions. While Quinn’s spokeswoman said the new law provided a ‘short-term fix,’ Brian Gladstein, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, knocked it as a way for the powerful to buy political favors.

slate:

The Numbers Don’t Lie

If you aren’t sure Citizens United gave rise to the super PACs, just follow the money.

By Richard L. Hasen|Posted Friday, March 9, 2012, at 2:56 PM ET

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/03/the_supreme_court_s_citizens_united_decision_has_led_to_an_explosion_of_campaign_spending_.html

===

durbin fed bill?

update:

Seven states — California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts New Mexico, Rhode Island and Vermont — have so far called for an amendment. Thousands and thousands of Public Citizen activists helped make these campaigns successful.

Public Citizen and allied organizations are advancing amendment resolutions or ballot initiatives in many other states, including Colorado, Montana and New Jersey.

96 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 29 members of the U.S. Senate have formally endorsed an amendment — many after hearing from Public Citizen’s supporters and policy experts. We recently stepped up our campaign to build even more amendment momentum in Congress.

Public Citizen and our organizational partners have helped advance resolutions in over 400 cities and towns throughout the country, with many more on the horizon.

===

Move to Amend Coalition

http://www.MoveToAm end.org

From: Bill Haff <bill.haff@gmail. com

Don't forget this Supreme Court decision from 1996. Monsanto may cite this as a precedent if the initiative passes. Monsanto may argue they are being forced to disclose a "trivial fact" and claim free speech rights which include the right "not to speak." This is picked up from the WILPF timeline:

International Dairy Foods Association v. Amestoy [1996]

Supreme Court overturns a Vermont law requiring the labeling of all products containing bovine growth hormone. The right not to speak inheres in political and commercial speech alike and extends to statements of fact as well as statements of opinion....

From: bodhirobin@pacific. net

SCOTUS overturned corporate right to privacy in March 2011 based on the

term "personal privacy." The court concluded that the word "person" is

defined in the law, and includes corporations and trade unions.

But the word "personal" is not defined in the law, and has a very

human-like sense about it and can't be applied to a corporation. To see

the exact language of the decision:

http://www.outsidet hebeltway. com/corporations -dont-have- privacy-rights/

Therefore, Corporations may currently have 1st Amendment Free Speech

rights, 4th Amendment Unreasonable Search & Seizure rights, 5th Amendment

private property rights, and they got this all with their 1886 14th

Amendment rights to Due Process of Law awarded during the Railroad Baron

days in SCOTUS case: Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad v. Beckwith (1889).

[They didn't waste much time, did they?]

But they don't have "personal privacy" rights.

In Peace,

Robin Sunbeam

Ukiah

---

SEE

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/12/david-swanson-history-of-corporate-personhood-how-lewis-powell-us-chamber-of-commerce-bought-the-us-supreme-court/

By Jeffrey Clements, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, AlterNet

http://www.amazon.com/Corporations-Are-Not-People-Rights/dp/1609941055

The following is an excerpt of Jeffrey Clement’s Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It.

The Consequences

The success of the Powell–Chamber of Commerce plan transformed American law, government, and society, with two devastating consequences for the country. First, corporations gained new political power at the expense of average citizens and voters. Corporations poured out money to lobbying and election campaigns and to help friendly politicians and hurt unfriendly politicians.With even modest reform crushed by corporate rights decisions such as Bellotti v. First National Bank of Boston— and now much more so, Citizens United — corporations could threaten “independent expenditure” campaigns against politicians who did not bend their way. Corporate money to influence legislative votes and politician behavior lost its scandalous, shameful nature. Bags of corporate cash were no longer bags of cash; they were “speech.” How could “speech” be corrupt or scandalous?

Washington and many state capitals became playgrounds for corporate lobbyists, and our elected representatives became increasingly disconnected from the will of the people. With the new, organized corporate radicalism, staggering amounts of corporate money flooded Washington and our political system. Between 1998 and 2010, for example, the Chamber of Commerce spent $739 million on lobbying. Pharmaceutical and health care corporations spent more than $2 billion on lobbying in the past twelve years. Three corporations seeking military contracts, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Lockheed, and Boeing, spent more than $400 million on lobbying. GE Corporation ($237 million), AT&T ($162 million), the pharmaceutical corporate lobby PHRMA ($195 million), ExxonMobil ($151 million), Verizon ($149 million), and many more corporations all joined the lobby- fest.25 Financial, labor, energy, environmental, health, trade, and other legislation and policy tilted in favor of corporate interests; the hurdles for advancing the public interest became much higher.

After Santa Clara

For several years the Court went along with the state regulation of

corporations, as if Santa Clara had never happened. The pendulum finally swung in

the late 1890s, with new judges on the bench and a growing fear that Populist and

Progressive reforms against the power of money had become a dangerous assault on

capital. The Court reacted with a flurry of decisions typified by Gulf, Colorado and

Santa Fe Railway Company v. Ellis (1897). There the Court called corporate

personhood “well settled,” and cited Santa Clara. It went on to claim Fourteenth

Amendment protections in ruling that a state had violated the equal protection

clause with a law that would have made railroads pay attorneys’ fees in certain cases.

It could hardly be more ironic that one year before, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the same

Court gutted the equal protection clause as applied to racial minorities (Gans & Kendall, 2010).

The case that gave its name to this era of anti-progressive decisions was

Lochner v. New York (1905). In a 5-4 decision the Court struck down a state law

that limited the number of hours a baker could work (10 hours/day, 60/week). This

and similar decisions came with dissenting minority opinions based on well settled law

that affirmed the government’s power to regulate corporations in the public

interest. The majority opinions were widely seen as distortions of first principles.

How could our vast store of constitutional imperatives, established by decades of

case law, suddenly compel us to defend corporate property at the expense of

individual life and liberty?

Just as the Lochner era seemed at or near its end, Warren Harding became

president in 1920. He soon reminded the nation of the close link between politics

and law when he installed four new Justices and a solid conservative majority.

Overnight the new Court revived Lochner-like protection of corporate liberty at the

expense of the public good. Again there were strong dissents, but the minority

views of such Justices as Holmes and Brandeis would not rise to majority until the

dawn of a new political era, the New Deal. President Roosevelt, stymied by a hostile

judiciary, failed in his threat to enlarge the Court in 1937. However, the same year

produced a “spontaneous” shift favorable to New Deal policies when Justice Owen

Roberts suddenly joined the four New Deal dissenters (Hughes, Brandeis, Cardozo

and Stone). This time theLochner vampireslept for several decades. It was an age

of first principles and government regulation to prevent corporate abuse of state-granted

privileges.

It too came to an end. The 1970s brought in a flock of federal regulations

about clean air and water, pollution, occupational safety, and other matters

beneficial to the public. Upset about compliance costs and frightened by the likes of

reformer Ralph Nader, corporations sought the advice of Lewis Powell through the

auspices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Powell, a corporate lawyer and soon-to-

be Supreme Court Justice, advised them to seek recourse in the law. “American

business and the enterprise system have been affected as much by courts as by the

executive and legislative branches of government. Under our constitutional system,

especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most

important instrument for social, economic and political change.” (Nace, 2003, p.

156.)

With Powell on the bench, after confirmation hearings in which he portrayed

himself as a moderate, the Court turned right in First National Bank of Boston v.

Bellotti (1978). Writing for the majority, Powell opined that a bank had a

Fourteenth Amendment right to use its treasury funds to oppose a state

referendum for a state income tax. To limit the political speech of a corporation

would be to violate the First Amendment, because the latter was meant to protect

political speech, whether the speaker was a natural person or a corporation. The

important thing was to protect the listener’s right to hear a vigorous debate. As far

as corporations were concerned, that was what the First Amendment was about.

Powell did not explain why it was not sufficient to protect the free speech of

corporate officers as ordinary individuals. He did not explain why my listener’s right

to receive information should give a corporate director the right to take from

shareholders the money needed to send me that information.

The dissenters were strong and clear, but only dissenters. Powell and his four

colleagues ignored nearly 200 years of constitutional limits on corporate participation

in elections because they chose to do so. However, they did not go all the way:

They withheld their blessing from corporate interference in the election of

candidates for political office. Referenda were fair game, but candidates taboo.

The Court went back and forth on this issue for several years, until another

election installed another conservative president, who turned the Court hard right

with two new appointments:{. The president was George W. Bush; the

appointments, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. This new Court headed off toward

the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its own Lochner era }:(Constitutional

Accountability Center, 2010). It crossed the line in 2010 with its Citizens United

decision.

The new era started in the 2008 primary season with a video-on-demand

movie against Hillary Clinton. Citizens United was the corporation that planned to

release the film.The impediment was the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA),

which kept corporations from spending treasury funds on corporate electioneering

ads for broadcast shortly before any federal election. In court, Citizens United asked

that its anti-Hillary film be exempted as a feature-length movie seen only by those

willing to pay. The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Court could have ruled narrowly, as it usually prefers to do, by ruling the

film an exception to the BCRA. However, the majority saw a chance to outdo

Powell with a constitutional right to transmute corporate gold into political power.

Dissenter Justice Stevens thought the majority had changed the facts of the

case itself so as to make new law. Nevertheless, the majority, including Chief Justice

John Roberts, who had seemed so respectful of precedent during his confirmation

hearings, went ahead and made new law.They simply denied any radical departure

from constitutional case law, and ruled that corporations are associations of citizens

entitled to full constitutional protection. Accordingly, campaign laws that target

corporations for special treatment violate the First Amendment. Critics saw the

ruling as an open door to foreign corporations willing to buy influence in American

elections.

For the majority, Justice Kennedy offered four justifications. Gans and Kendall

(2010) list and counter each one, as follows:

First: The First Amendment covers freedom of speech, and is not restricted

to people or citizens. Counter: As far back as John Marshall and the Dartmouth

contracts decision, the Court has distinguished people from corporations and

permitted special rules for corporate charters. Political speech is uniquely human,

and the identity of the speaker has always been relevant: In World War 2 a

broadcast to U.S. troops by Tokyo Rose would not have had the same treatment as

one by President Roosevelt.

Second: As corporations are associations of citizens, and citizens can spend

money on elections, so can corporations. Counter: They are not mere associations

of citizens. Government gives them special privileges, such as limited liability and

perpetual life, for special advantage in the amassing of wealth. A handful of officers

command the corporate ship; the others are investors along for the cruise and a

share of the profits.

Third: Unlimited corporate expenditures are a necessary means of protecting

the rights of the listeners, the voters. Counter: Corporation officers, as individuals,

already have the same freedom to spend as anyone else. In addition, corporations

already pump millions of dollars into our elections through corporate PACs (Political

Action Committees). As for voters, they have repeatedly expressed their fear that

corporate spending will overpower the voice of the people.

Fourth: Because media corporations have First Amendment protections, so

must all corporations. Counter: The First Amendment specifies “the press” for its

unique role. For good reason, the press is the only private business with explicit

constitutional protection: It has a fiduciary responsibility to the public.

The ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) appears to

be weak in logic and bereft of constitutional tradition. It is Ninth Circuit law, vintage

Justice Field. As such, it is nothing new. Perhaps we are fortunate to have seen no

more than we have of political decisions, dressed up as law, adopted by some Court

majority simply because it is a Court majority. But we have seen it before and may

well see it again from the Roberts Court: As we still ban corporations from direct

campaign contributions, much good law remains to be undone.

Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Today

And there it sits. It permeates the literature,...

http://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/ClimateOfCorpPersonhood.pdf

http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/buying_justice_the_impact_of_citizens_united_on_judicial_elections/

===

slate:

You will doubtless hear today that89-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens read aloud from his partial dissent in***Citizens United**v. Federal Election Commission* for almost 20 minutes in a slow, halting voice, periodically getting tangled up in thickets of words like "corporation" and "corruption." Meanwhile, a loud banging noise from the bench all but drowned him out. That's true. But Justice Anthony Kennedy fared no better reading from his majority opinion beforehand, tearing through the first part of his summary, then losing his place and stumbling through the holding. If Citizens United really represents the moment at which the Roberts court allows itself to finally give voice to its full-throated judicial activism, it's not clear Anthony Kennedy managed much more than a vocal mumble. He looked like he'd have preferred to have been reading his dissent from a soapbox. Or maybe from a crouch underneath the bench. Stevens haltingly worked his way through all five of his objections to the majority's holding today. Kennedy barely gulped out the holding itself.

In part, as Rick Hasen suggests that's because Kennedy's soaring sonnet for corporate free speech has very little to do with the case at hand. The court had to reach out far beyond any place it needed to go to strike down century-old restrictions on corporate spending in federal elections. This started off as a case about a single movie. It morphed into John Roberts' Golden Globe night.

So Kennedy doesn't really find his voice today until he gets to the fist-pounding bits: "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech." "The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach." And: "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."

As Stevens says in reading his dissent, none of that has anything to do with the court's decision to topple decades' worth of legal architecture that had never been questioned in the courts. And Kennedy's visceral terror of speech bans (the word "ban" appears 29 times in his 57-page opinion) and "censorship" seems to override any sort of temperate assessment of either the facts of the case before him, the lack of substantial record in the lower courts, the significance of the cases he is overruling, or the consequences of today's opinion. Perhaps because this is the same Anthony Kennedy who was so exquisitely sensitive to the corrupting influence of money on public confidence in judicial elections in the Caperton case about judicial corruption, it's hard to comprehend what it is about unlimited corporate contributions that so moves him.

If Kennedy is tentative this morning and Stevens is horrified, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas say nothing at all. They don't have to: They're the architects of the edifice Kennedy has erected. Reading from his dissent, Stevens describes their "sweeping" attacks on Michigan's campaign finance law in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (one of the cases overruled today) as "having planted the seed that flowered" into today's majority opinion.

One such bill is the Outlawing Corporate Cash Undermining the Public Interest in our Elections and Democracy (OCCUPIED) Constitutional Amendment, which was introduced by :{Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.):(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: this past November. It overturns the Supreme Court's January 2010 Citizens United ruling which held that corporations have the constitutional right to spend unlimited sums of money to influence elections.

http://teddeutch.house.gov/Biography/tedbio.htm

---

montana bucks: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/citizens-united-montana-supreme-court-corporate-spending_n_1182168.html?ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=010512&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

---

b2 WIjudge uses as basis to throw out cap 12/11

http://www.prwatch.org/node/11188

---

precedent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo

http://www.enotes.com/buckley-v-valeo-reference/buckley-v-valeo

Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a federal law which set limits on campaign contributions, but ruled that spending money to influence elections is a form of constitutionally protected free speech, and struck down portions of the law. The court also ruled candidates can give unlimited amounts of money to their own campaigns.

Contents [hide]

[edit] Facts

In 1974, over the veto of President Gerald R. Ford, the Congress passed significant amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, creating the first comprehensive effort by the federal government to regulate campaign contributions and spending. The key parts of the amended law did the following

limited contributions to candidates for federal office (2 USC §441a)
required the disclosure of political contributions (2 USC §434),
provided for the public financing of presidential elections (IRC Subtitle H),
limited expenditures by candidates and associated committees,
except for presidential candidates who accepted public funding (formerly 18 U.S.C. §608(c) (1)(C-F)),
limited independent expenditures to $1000 (formerly 18 U.S.C. §608e),
limited candidate expenditures from personal funds (formerly 18 U.S.C. §608a),
created and fixed the method of appointing members to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) (formerly 2 U.S.C. §437c(a) (1)(A-C)).

A lawsuit was filed in the District Court for the D.C., on January 2, 1975, by Senator James L. Buckley of New York, former Senator, 1968 presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, and others. The suit was filed against Francis R. Valeo, the Secretary of the Senate and ex officio member of the FEC who represented the U.S. federal government. The court denied plaintiffs' request for declaratory and injunctive relief. Plaintiffs then appealed to the Court of Appeals.

The petitioners sought for the district court to overturn the key provisions outlined above. They argued that the legislation was in violation of the 1st and 5th Amendment rights to freedom of expression and due process, respectively.

[edit] Decision

In a lengthy per curiam decision issued on January 30, 1976, the Court sustained the Act's limits on individual contributions, as well as the disclosure and reporting provisions and the public financing scheme. However, the limitations on campaign expenditures, on independent expenditures by individuals and groups, and on expenditures by a candidate from personal funds were struck down.

The Court also held that the method for appointments to the Federal Election Commission was an unconstitutional violation of Separation of Powers.

dissent: http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/2282

http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/2093

Hightower:

"We the Corporations?"

The Constitution itself makes no mention of corporations and creates no corporate rights. Our nation's founding document was deliberately written to guarantee sovereignty and the right of self-government to "The People"--and the founders most certainly did not intend for any corporation to be embraced within that term. Both national and state lawmakers abhorred and feared the rise of raw corporate power, and they went out of their way not only to declare these business structures a perpetual threat to democracy, but also to ensure that the corporate reach was strictly limited.

Thomas Jefferson bluntly declared in 1816 the need to "crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." His was a common view, for leaders at the time knew that corporations are inherently antidemocratic artifices of the wealthy elite, allowing controlling investors to do two dangerous things: (1) amass far more money than other interests can muster and use it to elevate their private interest above the common good; and (2) absolve investors of any personal responsibility for the damage done by their corporations.

These hierarchical, autocratic, profit-seeking entities are created by state-issued charters. Today, the charters are handed out with few questions asked, but in our nation's first 70 years or so, they were hard to get. To be chartered a corporation:

Had to have a public purpose. If it failed to adhere to this purpose, the state yanked its charter and the corporation was dissolved.
Was limited in what business it could pursue, was not allowed to buy other corporations, and could amass only a specified level of capital.
Faced term limits, with charters usually expiring after 20 years, requiring investors to apply to the legislature for charter renewal.
Had to treat farmers, small businesses, and other suppliers fairly.
Was strictly prohibited from lobbying or playing any role in political campaigns.

One fundamental point was established from the outset: a corporation is not a person. The people in a corporation (shareholders, management, workers) have the inalienable rights of citizens--they vote, participate in campaigns (give money, volunteer, run for office), serve in government, speak, and assemble. But the corporation itself--an inanimate object--can't. People breathe, think, ponder their souls, and can be put in jail. A corporation can't. It is a paper construct, an artificial being--a thingamajig.

Yes, governments can (and do) bestow privileges on the thingamajig, but it is absurd to assert--as Roberts appears to be doing--that the thingamajig has the same rights as humans, and therefore cannot be prevented by elected governments from dumping its treasury into our elections.

In fact, the Supreme Court itself has ruled down through history that corporations are indeed subject to whatever restrictions the People choose to put on them. Here are a few of the Court's pronouncements that the Roberts Five would summarily reject:

[A corporation is a] mere legal entity...not a citizen." -- Bank of the US v. Deveaux, 1809

"[A corporation is a] mere creature of law [that] possesses only those properties which the charter confers upon it." -- Chief Justice John Marshall Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 1819

"[A corporation is] an artificial being...existing only in contemplation of law [and created only for such] objects as the government wishes to promote." -- Dartmouth College

"The only rights [a corporation] can claim are the rights which are given to it in that character, and not the rights which belong to its members as citizens of a state..." -- Bank of Augusta v. Earle, 1839

"The liberty referred to in that [Fourteenth] Amendment is the liberty of natural, not artificial persons." -- Northwestern National Live Ins. Co. v. Riggs, 1906

"Neither the history nor the language of the Fourteenth Amendment justifies the belief that corporations are included within its protections." -- Conn. Life Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 1938

"It has been settled that corporations are not entitled to all of the constitutional protections which private individuals have..." -- Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, 1946

"It cannot be disputed that the mere creation of a corporation does not invest it with all the liberties enjoyed by natural persons..."

"It is thus an accepted part of the business landscape in this country for states to create corporations, to prescribe their powers, and to define the rights that are acquired by purchasing their shares." -- First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 1978

"The unique state-conferred corporate structure that facilitates the amassing of large treasuries warrants the limit on independent expenditures." -- Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 1990

"[Restricting corporate] electioneering communications [is based on] legislative judgment that the special characteristics of the corporate structure require particularly careful regulation." -- McConnell v. FEC, 2003

Whose money is it?

Corporations are different from you and me (beyond the obvious fact that they don't happen to be alive). When it comes to having a right to spend money in election campaigns, two intrinsic, structural realities disqualify the corporate entity from its claim to be just another group of concerned citizens.

First, the money that executives would disburse from the corporate treasury does not belong to them.When citizens (i.e., real people, including the many individuals involved in the corporate entity) put up money to support or oppose candidates, they're drawing from their own pockets. But executives who would direct political spending from the "corporate person" would be using funds that are not theirs.

Corporations aggregate massive sums of money from shareholders (including pension funds), as well as from lenders, consumers, and even employees who make financial concessions to management. Collectively, these funds come from millions of people who have widely differing political opinions and goals. None of them put their money into the corporate coffers for political use, and none meant for this money to be treated as an endorsement of the corporation's political ideas. For executives to divert any of this wealth into campaigns without the knowledge and okay of those who put up the money is unethical, amounting to fraud and theft.[vs union?]

---

http://www:{.sourcewatch.:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:org/index.php?title=Citizens_United

the org

Citizens Unitedwas created in November 1988 by conservative activist Floyd G. Brown,^[1] It is "a nonprofit corporation organized under the laws of Virginia and tax-exempt under section 501(c)(4)of the Internal Revenue Code."^[2] Citizens United is affiliated with The Presidential Coalition, a 501(c)(4), and the 2007 Conservative Victory Committee, a Section 527 political action committee. Previously, it was affiliated with the National Security Political Action Committee (National Security PAC), Presidential Victory Committee and Americans for Bush. Citizens United is led by David Bossie, who has served as president since 2000. Its offices are on Pennsylvania Avenue in the Capitol hill area of Washington, D.C.

Contents:{

History

Citizens United was founded by Floyd Brown^[3] in 1988.

Controversies

Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

In January, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a divided 5-4 vote, held that section 441b of the 2002 McCain-Feingold federal campaign finance law (Bipartisan Campaign Reform) was unconstitutional. The law prohibited corporations and unions from using their general treasury funds to make independent expenditures for "electioneering communication," or for speech expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate.

The ruling effectively protected corporate speech the same as individual speech. The majority’s ruling about corporate electioneering marked a dramatic break from the past. In doing so, the Court rejected a century of previous court decisions that ruled corporate donations can, and should be regulated. In its ruling, the court never explained why corporate identity demands the same treatment as individual identity.^[4]

Movies

Opposition to Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton

By far to date, Citizens United's biggest controversy surrounds its efforts to influence the 2008 presidential elections through "Hillary: The Movie."^[5] A federal court ruled that "Citizens United could not run ads for its negative film on Hillary Rodham Clinton without disclosing the ad’s donors. The group wants to release and promote 'Hillary: The Movie' to coincide with the dates when many states will hold primary elections, but the court found that in order for the ads to adhere to current campaign finance law, Citizens United would have to disclose who paid for the ads."^[6] The group has appealed this case all the way to the Supreme Court. For more information about the legal arguments in that case and its implications for individual rights in a democracy as compared with corporate rights, see Portal:Corporate_Rights

Opposition to Presidential Candidate John Kerry and to Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"

In September 2004, "Fred Thompson, Charles Krauthammer, Fred Barnes, Michael Medved, Michael Barone and Bill Sammon among other Washington veterans" were featured in Citizens United's film , "Celsius 41.11."^[7] This movie purported to "[counter] the lies and deceptions of Fahrenheit 9/11 and [provide] a full deconstruction of Senator John Kerry, the Democrat presidential nominee."^[8]

In June 2004, Citizens United also joined the right-wing campaign to block distributionof Fahrenheit 9/11, by filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, claiming that the movie violated federal election law.^[9]

Opposition to the ACLU

Citizen United produced ACLU: At War With America. The film featured "Michael Boos, Mark Corallo, Former Congressman John Hostettler, Michael Medved, Former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, Deroy Murdock, U.S. Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, Michael Reagan, Alan Sears, Mathew Staver and Victoria Toensing."^[10][11]

Opposition to the United Nations

Citizen United produced: Broken Promises: The United Nations at 60.^[12]

Role in Anti-Immigration Campaigns

Citizens United produced Border War: The Battle Over Illegal Immigration^[13]

Other Movies

Rediscovering God in America, Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny, and We Have the Power were hosted by Newt Gingrich.

Television Ads

The group has run ads against Democratic candidates and in favor of Republican policies. For example:

Citizens United Launches New Television Ad Against Senator John Kerry "Man of the People".

In March 2003, Citizens United "launched a national ad campaign supporting Bush's hard-charging approach to Baghdad," with Fred Thompson as the "face" for the anti-war "counter movement."^[14]

Alex Castellanos'^[15] National Media, Inc. "produced ads that ran in February and March 2003, supporting the war in Iraq and supporting the troops."^[16]

The Strategy Group for Media is connected with Citizens United PAC^[17] through Brian J. Berry^[18], who is a member of the Citizens United board of directors.^[19] The Strategy Group produced an ad criticizing John Kerry.^[20]

However, the group did produce a television advertisement that revealed supposedly "liberal" legislative actions taken by then Presidential candidate Senator John McCain.^[21] The Group aired the ad on Fox News Channel.[2] But the relative amount of funding spent on this as compared with other efforts could be viewed as window dressing and certainly does not make their criticism "bipartisan."

Donatelli Group and the Swift Boat connection

The Citizens United online store is operated through DonationReport.com, plus an extension code for Citizens United.^[22]

The connection for the DonationReport.com website^[23] arrives at a Login^[24]—requiring both a User ID and Password—which belongs to eDonation.com, a member of The Donatelli Group, a fundraising company that has raised campaign funds for the Republican National Committee, Republican National Convention, Bush-Cheney '04 Inc., John McCain, the NRA^[25] and an exhaustive list of Republican members of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as other political organizations.^[26]

The Donatelli Group, using its "primary segment" Campaign Solutions^[27], is associated with Creative Response Concepts, the public relations firm that advised Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the "organization that accused Kerry of inflating his Vietnam War record" during the 2004 presidential campaign.

The Donatelli Group, which produced the RNC website^[28], also created the SWIFTBOATVETSFORTRUTH.ORG website July 30, 2004, with Connell Donatelli Inc.^[29] (a.k.a. The Donatelli Group) as Registrant. Connell Donatelli Inc. was also listed as both Administrator and the Tech Organization for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth website.^[30]

Projects and affiliated programs

American :{Sovereignty:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: Action Project (ASAP)

This is also known as theAmerican Sovereignty Project (ASP).

Boycott France

See the Citizens United website.^[31]

Center for Government Integrity (CGI)

Citizens United for the Bush Agenda (CUBA)

Citizens United Foundation

Citizens United Political Victory Fund (CU-PVF)

CU-PVF is Citizens United's political action committee.

Counter George Soros

See the Citizens United website.^[32]

National Citizens Legal Network (NCLN)

National Committee for Faith and Family (NCFF)

"Taxpayers Defense Committee"

In 1993, the Taxpayers Defense Committee was a "joint project of the Citizens United and the Conservative Victory Committee."^[33]

Legal Briefs

See "Courtroom Advocacy: A Listing of Filed Legal Briefs":^[34] See also SourceWatch's Corporate Rights portal for more information on the legal briefs filed in the Supreme Court case over "Hillary: The Movie."

Citizens United also filed briefs in the following controversies, among others:

Amicus Curiae Brief supporting Vice-President **Dick Cheney** in the GAO's lawsuit (Walker v. Cheney)
Amicus Brief opposing the Illinois Attorney General's attempt to dictate or otherwise restrict the content of non-profit organization communications (Ryan v. TelemarketingAssociates)

"Policy Papers"

See "Policy Papers".^[35]

Mailing List Issue

:{Response Unlimite:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:d lists Citizens United for the Bush Agenda, Citizens United Foundation, and The Presidential Coalition on a mailing list used for "Reagan Republicans for the New Millennium" Donors".^[36][37]

An Eagle List Company list for USA Next Donors (United Seniors Association Donors) updated January 21, 2007, listed the Citizens United for the Bush Agenda among users for the "past six months".^[38]

Campaign donors for 2000 presidential hopeful Steve Forbes listed by the Eagle List Company included Citizens United and the American Sovereignty Project.^[39]

Official Mission Statement

Citizens United describes itself as "an organization dedicated to restoring our government to citizens control. Through a combination of education, advocacy, and grass roots organization, Citizens United seeks to reassert the traditional American values of limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families, and national sovereignty and security. Citizens United's goal is to restore the founding father's vision of a free nation, guided by the honesty, common sense, and good will of its citizens," its website states.^[40]

Officers and Board of Directors

Also see Officers and Board of Directors:^[41]

David N. Bossie, President, Citizens United & Citizens United Foundation, Burtonsville, Maryland
Michael Boos, Vice President & General Counsel & Director of Citizens United American Sovereignty Action Project, Manassas, Virginia
Floyd G. Brown, Chairman of the Board; Executive Director, The Reagan Ranch & Young America's Foundation, Santa Barbara, California
Brian J. Berry, Director; Media Consultant, Austin, Texas
Douglas L. Ramsey, Secretary-Treasurer, Seattle, Washington
Ron Robinson, Director^[42][43]; President, Young America's Foundation, Reston, Virginia^[44]

Bob Barr, Congressman and Honorary Chairman

Registration and financial information

A disclaimer at the bottom of the Citizens United online store page^[45] states:

"Information concerning Citizens United's registration and financial information can be obtained from the following: Florida Division of Consumer Services by calling within the state 1-800-help-fla, reg. No. SC-04837, 100% of contributions are received by the organization; documents and information submitted under Maryland's charitable solicitation act are available, for the cost of postage and copies, for the Maryland Secretary of State, State House, Annapolis, MD 21401, (410) 974-5534; Mississippi Secretary of State's Office by calling 1-888-236-6167; Attorney General of the State of New Jersey by calling 973-504-6215; New York State Attorney General, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271; North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State, solicitation licensing section, 919-807-2214; Pennsylvania Department of State, or by calling, from within Pennsylvania, 800-732-0999; Virginia Division of Consumer Affairs in the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs; Secretary of State (State Washington) by calling 1-800-332-4483; West Virginia Secretary of State, State Capitol, Charleston, VA 24305; or by contacting Citizens United, 109 Carpenter Drive, suite 210, Sterling, VA 20164. Registration with a government agency does not imply endorsement by that agency."

Contact information

1006 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE

Washington, DC 20003

Phone: 202 547-5420

Toll-Free: 800 362-4788

FAX: 202 547-5421

Website: http://www.citizensunited.org/

Weblog: http://www.citizensunited.org/blog/

Articles and resources

References

↑ Black Max, "This Far and No Further. A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy," IraqTimeline.com for 1988.
↑ Declaration of Michael Boos, on Behalf of Plaintiffs Citizens United and Citizens United Political Victory Fund, Congressman Ron Paul, et al., Plaintiffs, vs. Federal Election Commission, et al., Defendants, Civil Action No. 02-CV-781, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, October 3, 2002.
↑ Floyd Brown - Biography
↑ The Daily Star The court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Excerpts of the decision. January 28, 2010
↑ HillaryMovie.com website.
↑ "Some Movie Ads Require Disclosure," CQ's MoneyLine, January 15, 2008.
↑ Celsius4111.com
↑ "Citizens United to Premiere 'Celsius 41.11 - the Temperature at Which the Brain Begins to Die'; Documentary Challenges Lies in 'Fahrenheit 9/11', Deconstructs John Kerry," Business Wire (FindArticles.com), September 16, 2004.
↑ Susan Jones, "Michael Moore Film Violates Campaign Finance Law, Group Alleges," (formerly Conservative News Service; now Cybercast News Service), June 23, 2004.
↑ ACLUMovie.com.
↑ ACLUMovie.com website.
↑ BrokenPromisesMovie.com.
↑ BorderWarMovie.com.
↑ Liza Porteus, "'Pro-War' Movement Springs Into Action," Fox News, March 2, 2003. Note: Thompson is promoting the Bush administration's position in his ad. See The alleged linkage of Saddam Hussein with Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction.
↑ Selected Affiliations: Alex Castellanos, The Stealth PACs/Public Citizen, accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ Principals and Consultants, Past and Present of Citizens United (CU), The Stealth PACs/Public Citizen, accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ Our Clients, The Strategy Group for Media, accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ gregflynn, "AZ-08,CO-07,IA-01,IN-02,IN-08,IN-09,KY-04,NC-11,NM-01," MyDD, October 12, 2006.
↑ About, Citizens United, accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ Principals and Consultants, Past and Present of Citizens United (CU), The Stealth PACs/Public Citizen, accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ [1]
↑ DonationReport.com processing center, accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ DonationReport.com website.
↑ Login page, DonationReport.com.
↑ Erin McPike, "Two Republican Web Giants Form Connell Donatelli Inc.," CampaignLine.com, August 20, 2004.
↑ Clients, CampaignSolutions.com.
↑ edonation.com website
↑ "Information on the RNC Organizers," OnePeoplesProject.com, last updated August 29, 2004; accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ ConnellDonatelli.com website.
↑ "Re: Bush, O'Neill, Swifties and Purple Heart Band-aids," Mailgate, September 11, 2004; accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ Boycott France, Citizens United website.
↑ Counter Soros, Citizens United website.
↑ Michael Clark, "Selling issues - political consultants," Campaigns & Elections (FindArticles.com), April-May 1993. See page 4.
↑ Courtroom, Citizens United website.
↑ Policy Papers, Citizens United website.
↑ Usage for REAGAN REPUBLICANS OF THE NEW MILLENIUM DONORS, Response Unlimited, accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ According Vickie Koth of Christian Freedom International, "three lists we tested that all bombed. Our current donors are quite faithful, but in terms of new prospects, the lists we tried (Nora Lam, Alan Keyes, and Reagan Republicans of the New Millennium) did not pan out," Mike Buwalda of the Christian Stewardship Association wrote May 2007 in "Top 10 'Appeal Letter' Lessons from Christian Nonprofits."
↑ USA Next Donors, Eagle List Company, accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ Forbes 2000 Campaign Donors, Eagle List Company, revised January 21, 2007.
↑ Citizens United website.
↑ Officers and Board of Directors, Citizens United website.
↑ Ron Robinson, ReaganRanch.com.
↑ Profile: Ron Robinson, CNP.
↑ Profile: Ron Robinson, Young America's Foundation.
↑ DonationReport.com processing center, accessed July 3, 2007.

External resources

Citizens United, NNDB.com.
See "Clinton, Conspiracism, and the Continuing Culture War," American Spectator (The Public Eye), 1998: "Citizens United is an example of how the players and themes in conspiracist anticommunism shifted seamlessly to conspiracist antiliberalism and joined the campaign against a demonized Clinton, pulling their conspiracy theories into the mainstream media and Congress." Includes background information on Bossie, Boos, Brown, and other key players in Citizens United.

External articles

2009

Adam Liptak, Supreme Court to Revisit Hillary Documentary, New York Times, August 29, 2009.
See also numerous articles about the Supreme Court case listed at Portal:Corporate_Rights.

2008

John Eggerton, "Boehner, Conservative Groups Weigh In on Localism: FCC Chairman Kevin Martin Hears from Rep. John Boehner, Americans for Tax Reform, Christian Coalition, Citizens United," Broadcasting & Cable, June 13, 2008.
"Anti-Obama DVD Distributed in Swing States -- By Top Newspapers," Associated Press, October 28, 2008.
William Triplett, "Anti-Clinton docu goes back to court: High court will hear 'Hillary' producers' appeal," Variety, November 14, 2008.
Adam Liptak, "Justices Agree to Hear Case on Anti-Clinton Film", New York Times, November 14, 2008.

2007

Fred Lucas, "Critical Documentary on Hillary Clinton Set for Fall Release," Cybercast News Service, February 9, 2007.
Jonathan Rick, "Citizens United Files Brief in Landmark Campaign-Finance Case," The Conservative Voice, March 26, 2007.
"Newt Gingrich & Citizen's United Lash Out at Amnesty Bill," Gateway Pundit Blogspot, June 21, 2007.
Quin Hillyer, "Re-Post: Gingrich vs. Amnesty," AmSpec Blog/The American Spectator, June 25, 2007. See Gingrich/Bossie ad.
Citizens United, The New Stealth PACS/Public Citizen, accessed June 28, 2007.

2006

Stephen Manfredi, :{"Dick Morris :(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:and David Bossie Unveil New 'Wiretap' Ad: Dem Weakness in Fighting Terrorism," Citizens United (Free Republic), October 30, 2006.

2005

"Hollywood Vandals Brand Bush a Nazi," Human Events Online, February 18, 2005.
Meghan Clyne, "U.N. Naysayers Greet 60th Anniversary With Biting Documentary," New York Sun, September 7, 2005.

2004

Liz Sidoti, "'Priceless' parody ad singes Kerry on lifestyle," Associated Press (Boston Globe), March 9, 2004: "A conservative group headed by one of former President Clinton's harshest critics is airing an ad that pokes fun at presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry's haircut, designer clothing and property holdings. ... Citizens United, headed by former Republican congressional aide David Bossie, began airing the ad—a parody of MasterCard's 'priceless'." commercials—on cable and broadcast channels Sunday in select presidential battleground states."
"US group unveils Kerry attack ads. A US conservative group has released a series of television advertisements criticising US Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry," BBC, March 9, 2004: "The ads, paid for by a group called Citizens United, condemn Mr. Kerry as a 'rich liberal elitist'. ... The advertisements ran in select states over the weekend but went nationwide across the US on Monday."
:{"Citizens United Ad May Run During 60 Minutes;:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: Ad Seems to Violate CBS's Policy Against 'Advocacy Advertising'," Media Matters for America, June 18, 2004.
"CBS to air new 'anti-Clinton ad'?; Citizens United ad would apparently violate CBS's stated policy not to run 'advocacy' ads on 'controversial issues of public importance'," Media Matters for America, June 18, 2004.
John Gorenfeld, "Michael Moore Terrorizes the Bushies," Salon, June 23, 2004.
"Citizens United ad got free air time on FOX," Media Matters for America, June 23, 2004.
Steve Gorman, "U.S. Panel Dismisses 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Complaint," Reuters, August 6, 2004. The Federal Election Commission unanimously rejects CU's complaint against Fahrenheit 9/11, which sought to end advertising for the movie after July 30.
Sharon Theimer, "Anti-Kerry group seeks press exemption," Associated Press, August 5, 2004. CU asks the Federal Election Commission for a media exemption, so that it can run election-time ads for an anti-John Kerry book and anti-Kerry and John Edwards documentaries.
Joe Conason, "Triumph of the W. Trying to counter the success of Michael Moore, Karl Rove's men in Hollywood are rushing to release a pro-Bush epic, 'The Big Picture.' But are they violating federal campaign law?" Salon, August 20, 2004. re Lionel Chetwynd, "widely known as one of the Bush administration's most fervent advocates in the movie industry".
Dave Neiwert, "Our friends at Citizens United," Orcinus Blogspot, August 21, 2004.
Federal Election Commission Advisory Opinion Number 2004-30; Letter from Federal Election Commission to Citizens United, September 10, 2004.
Editorial: "Calling All Book-Burners," New York Post (Free Republic), September 26, 2004.
"New Anti-Michael Moore Film Features Ripped-Off Music," Cosmic Iguana Blog, October 26, 2004.

2003

Liza Porteus, "'Pro-War' Movement Springs Into Action," Fox News, March 2, 2003.
Nat Ives, "MTV Refuses Antiwar Commercial," New York Times, March 13, 2003: "Supporters of an invasion of Iraq have seen doors slammed on them as well. ... The Citizens United Foundation, a group that ran commercials in 1991 supporting the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, made its own commercial supporting President Bush and a possible war in Iraq. Starring Fred Thompson, a former Republican Senator and an actor now appearing on 'Law & Order,' the spot was produced to counter the celebrity factor of the Martin Sheen [anti-war] spot and others from the antiwar camp."

2002

William Hughes, "Warmongering on the D.C. Mall," artbabyart.com, 2002.

Retrieved from "http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United"

Categories: Politics (U.S.) | Elections (U.S.) | Political dirty tricks | Civil liberties (U.S.) | Corporate Rights

slate:

http://www.slate.com/id/2242208

http://www.slate.com/id/2242209/pagenum/all/#p2

The Supreme Court kills campaign finance reform.

By Richard L. HasenPosted Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010, at 12:58 PM ET

It is time for everyone to drop all the talk about the Roberts court's "judicial minimalism," with Chief Justice Roberts as an "umpire" who just calls balls and strikes.Make no mistake, this is an activist court that is well on its way to recrafting constitutional law in its image. The best example of that is this morning's transformative opinion in *Citizens United v. FEC*. Today the court struck down decades-old limits on corporate and union spending in elections (including judicial elections) and opened up our political system to a money free-for-all.

Back in June, I explained http://www.slate.com/id/2221753/ to Slate readers the basics of this case. Citizens United is an ideological group, like the NRA or Planned Parenthood, except that it takes for-profit corporate funding. It produced an anti-Hillary Clinton documentary. The group wanted to air the documentary during the 2008 presidential primary season through a cable television video-on-demand service and to advertise for it on television. In exchange for a $1.2 million fee, a cable-television-operator consortium would have made the documentary available to subscribers to download free on demand. The McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law passed in 2002 bars certain corporate-funded television broadcasts, such as this documentary, in the 60 days before a general election (or the 30 days before a primary). And the law requires disclosure by the funders of election-related broadcast advertising, such as these ads. Citizens United argued against the corporate-spending ban.

Citizens United's broadest argument was that the court should overrule its 1990 case *Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce*, which upheld limits on corporate spending in candidate elections. Before argument, I expected the court to take a different course by deciding this case narrowly. The court could have done that by saying that McCain-Feingold's statutory rules barring corporate-funded television broadcasts don't apply to video-on-demand broadcasts. That would be in line with some of the past decisions of the Roberts court, when it had preferred to chip away at existing precedent rather than dramatically move the law rightward. But, as Dahlia Lithwick explained, at oral argument the government's lawyer got into some trouble in suggesting that the government would have the constitutional power to ban corporate-published booksjust before the election. The exchange made it seem like the court could well be poisedto overrule Austin

All bets were off at the end of the last term, when the court announced the case would be rescheduled for a second round of oral argument last September specifically to reconsider the overruling of Austin case and a second case, McConnell. We've been waiting ever since.

Today Justice Kennedy wrote for a court majority of the five conservative justices. He effectively wiped out a key provision of Congress' 2002 campaign finance reform. He also did indeed strike down Austin and parts of McConnell. To Justice Kennedy, any limits on the independent spending of money in elections smack of government censorship. The limits Congress enacted in 2002 remind him of old English laws requiring licensing for speech. He talked about the byzantine sets of federal laws and regulations involved—genuinely confusing, it's true—and said that none of it was permissible under the First Amendment. He talked of the rise of the Internet and blogs and how the government could soon come in and start regulating political blogging if the court did not step in.

Though the decision deals with federal elections, expect state and local corporate and union spending limits to be challenged, and to fall, throughout the country. There are many responses to Justice Kennedy's reasoning. He wrongly assumes that corporations or unions can throw money at public officials without corrupting them. Could a candidate for judicial office, for example, be swayed to rule in favor of a contributor who donated $3 million to an independent campaign to get the candidate elected to the state supreme court? Justice Kennedy himself thought so in last year's *Caperton* case. And yet he runs away from that decision in today's ruling. Justice Kennedy acknowledges that with the "soft money" limits on political parties still in place, third-party groups (which tend to run more negative and irresponsible ads) will increase in strength relative to political parties. And that possibility raises the real chance Congress will repeal the "soft money" limits, thereby increasing the risks of quid pro quocorruption.

There's more to criticize in the opinion. Should the American people, through Congress, be able to decide that the vast economic inequality that comes with our wonderful capitalist system should not translate into vast political inequality? Justice Kennedy seems to believe that this would lead to the imminent decline of our democracy. Money is speech; speech may not be suppressed. But the last time I checked, the U.K. and Canada were vibrant, functioning democracies, despite the far more stringent limits they place on spending in their elections. Finally, Justice Kennedy's single horrible—his specter of blog censorship—sounds more like the rantings of a right-wing talk show host than the rational view of a justice with a sense of political realism.

What is so striking today is how avoidable this political tsunami was. The court has long adhered to a doctrine of "constitutional avoidance," by which it avoids deciding tough constitutional questions when there is a plausible way to make a narrower ruling based on a plain old statute. That's what the court did in last term's voting-rights case—in fact, going so far as to adopt an implausible statutory interpretation to avoid overturning a crown jewel of the civil rights movement.

What we have in Citizens United is anti-avoidance. Kennedy's majority had to go out and grab this one. Justice Stevens' dissent lists three ways the majority could have skirted the constitutional question. One of them would have been to say that McCain-Feingold does not apply to video-on-demand. This and the Stevens' other options are all plausible interpretations, certainly more plausible than the tricky footwork in the voting rights case. Instead, here the court went out of its way to overturn its own precedent, in violation of its usual rule of stare decisis, which calls for respecting past rulings for the good of reliable law-making. And it did so violating its usual rule, which it cited even yesterday, that it does not generally reach issues not raised in the initial petition to the court.

In short, the court did not have to do what it did today. The chief justice issued a brief concurrence apparently solely to defend himself (and Justice Alito, who signed it) against charges of judicial activism. Roberts wrote that the alternative interpretations were not plausible, and that exceptions to stare decisis apply. Opponents of the decision today are likely to be unconvinced. This is a court that has taken a giant leap toward deregulation of the electoral process.

It left in place one requirement: that the corporate and union groups unleashing the attack ads have to disclose who they are (and for that, Kennedy had everyone's vote but Justice Thomas'.) But given the history of money and elections, why should we think that disclosure alone will be enough to deal with the problems of corruption and inequality that threaten our government? I have my doubts. But I'm sure this is a bad day for American democracy.

REVERSED in a 5-4 decision with an opinion written by Justice Kennedy. Justice Stevens dissented, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor.

newcomplex

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/citizens-united-anniversary-money-politics

AT&T's "personal" rights, campaign donations from China, and other absurdities one year after Citizens United.

— By Andy Kroll

Fri Jan. 21, 2011 3:00 AM PST

A year ago today, the Supreme Court handed down its game-changing decision in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The 5-4 ruling threw out decades of limitations on the amount of cash corporations and unions could spend to influence elections. Arguing that those limitations curtailed the First Amendment rights of corporations and unions, the majority of the high court effectively opened the campaign-cash spigot to its maximum setting, enabling a spending free-for-all.

Outside donors, most of them anonymous, dumped almost $300 million into last year's midterms. Among them were rich individuals, such as housing titan and GOP benefactor Bob Perry, and corporations and unions, like Dow Chemical and the AFL-CIO.

So where do we stand 365 days later? How dramatically has Citizens United altered the way our leaders get elected? And can we expect more changes to campaign finance law in its wake?

It was the post-Citizens United political playing field that defined the 2010 midterm elections. Shadowy groups like Karl Rove's American Crossroads, Crossroads GPS, American Action Network, and Commonsense Ten sprung up to capitalize on the new ground rules. The rush of outside spending came mostly from the right, which outspent the left by more than a two-to-one average, $191 million to $94 million.

Only after they'd conceded 63 House seats and six Senate seats did Democrats and liberal organizations grasp how much power these independent spending groups had been handed.

...The Sunlight Foundation explains:

Under IRS rules, a corporation that wants to hide the donors to its election activities and still maintain its tax-exempt status cannot have the election of candidates as its "primary purpose." So it must spend more on "education" or issue ads than it spends on electioneering communications. That means, for example, that in order to keep its tax-exempt status, Karl Rove brainchild Crossroads GPS, which spent $17 million on campaign ads on the November elections, must now spend at least twice that on issue ads.

Whether Rove's outfit and others like it can prove they're not entirely political creatures will be one of the most closely watched issues in Citizens United's aftermath.

Not to be overlooked are the legal aftershocks of the case. The Supreme Court is now contemplating the corporation-as-person issue, raised so famously in Citizens United, in a case where telecommunications giant AT&T aims to prevent the federal government from obtaining company information under the Freedom of Information Act.

The act exempts the release of information that would violate "personal privacy," and AT&T claims the government's request would do just that, though most people would hardly call AT&T a "person." As US Solicitor General Neil Katyal put it, "A corporation itself can no more be embarrassed, harassed, or stigmatized than a stone." But in the wake of Citizens United, outsiders wait nervously to see how the Supreme Court takes on "corporate personhood" this time.

Post-Citizens United legal battles could also chip away at the campaign-finance laws left standing. In one ongoing suit, two foreign nationals—in this case, Canadian citizens living in the US—are challenging the so-called Alien Gag law, a part of the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 that prevents foreign nationals or sovereign-wealth funds from donating to American political campaigns. In short, it's what prevents China from directly influencing American elections. On January 13, a federal judge ruled that two plaintiffs had the right to challenge the act. And while Fred Wertheimer, who runs the reform group Democracy 21, says the challenge isn't much cause for concern, he adds, "I'm not predicting anything."

Also on the Supreme Court's to-do list is Davis v. Federal Election Commission, a case involving Arizona's public-trigger mechanism—the point at which a publicly financed candidate receives additional funds. Conservatives argue that these mechanisms, which kick in when the war chest of the candidate's privately financed opponent surpasses certain thresholds, stifle free speech.

What worries reform advocates is that the Davis case could be used to scrap public campaign financing altogether. Wertheimer, an avowed supporter of publically financed elections, says he doubts the high court would overturn Buckley v. Valeo, its 1976 decision allowing public financing, but "always, given Citizens United, we live to wait and see what this [Supreme Court] is going to do."

blog?

Who is Behind these Lies?

Roger Stone boasts about being the sleaziest man in politics and that his rules are �Attack, attack, attack�never defend� and �Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack.� As a young operative, Stone was involved in Watergate, causing him to be fired by Bob Dole. Stone was also forced to cut ties with New York Senate Republicans after he left a harassing message on the voicemail of Eliot Spitzer�s father. Even Republican Ed Rollins says Stone �always had this reputation of being a guy who exaggerated things, who pretended he did things. Roger was never on Nixon�s staff, was never on the White House staff. I don�t think you�ll find anyone in the business who trusts him. Roger was always a little rat.� Stone recently said �McCain himself should not run a slash-and-burn campaign, but a slash-and-burn campaign will have to be run by others.�

Floyd Brown, the leader of the National Campaign Fund, the Legacy Committee, Citizens for a Safe and Prosperous America and the Policy Issues Institute, once bragged he was part of the �the heart and soul of the right-wing conspiracy.� has a history of surfacing every four years to make right-wing attacks against Democrats in presidential elections. Most infamously, Brown was responsible for the racist 1988 �Willie Horton� ad against Michael Dukakis. Brown harassed the Clintons throughout Bill Clinton�s administration, with even George H.W. Bush calling his behavior in the 1992 presidential election�which included harassing the family of a recent suicide victim��filthy campaign tactics.� After writing a 2000 book about Al Gore that went little-noticed, in 2004, Brown and David Bossie, working as the group Citizens United, make a movie called Celsius 41.11 and ran television ads attacking John Kerry.

David Bossie, who runs Citizens United, has paired with Floyd Brown for years. Bossie and Brown harassed the Clintons throughout Bill Clinton�s administration, with even George H.W. Bush calling his behavior in the 1992 presidential election�which included harassing the family of a recent suicide victim��filthy campaign tactics.� After writing a 2000 book about Al Gore that went little-noticed, in 2004, Brown and Floyd Bossie, working as the group Citizens United, made a movie called Celsius 41.11 and ran television ads attacking John Kerry. In 1998, Bossie was fired from his job with the House Committee investigating Bill Clinton. When Bossie selectively released tapes, removing information that exonerated the Clintons, and improperly obtained phone records, even Newt Gingrich said he was �embarrassed for the conference at the circus that went on.

blog

Who is Behind these Lies

Roger Stone boasts about being the sleaziest man in politics and that his rules are Attack, attack, attacknever defend and Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack. As a young operative, Stone was involved in Watergate, causing him to be fired by Bob Dole. Stone was also forced to cut ties with New York Senate Republicans after he left a harassing message on the voicemail of Eliot Spitzers father. Even Republican Ed Rollins says Stone always had this reputation of being a guy who exaggerated things, who pretended he did things. Roger was never on Nixons staff, was never on the White House staff. I dont think youll find anyone in the business who trusts him. Roger was always a little rat. Stone recently said McCain himself should not run a slash-and-burn campaign, but a slash-and-burn campaign will have to be run by others.

Floyd Brown, the leader of the National Campaign Fund, the Legacy Committee, Citizens for a Safe and Prosperous America and the Policy Issues Institute, once bragged he was part of the the heart and soul of the right-wing conspiracy. has a history of surfacing every four years to make right-wing attacks against Democrats in presidential elections. Most infamously, Brown was responsible for the racist 1988 Willie Horton ad against Michael Dukakis. Brown harassed the Clintons throughout Bill Clintons administration, with even George H.W. Bush calling his behavior in the 1992 presidential electionwhich included harassing the family of a recent suicide victimfilthy campaign tactics. After writing a 2000 book about Al Gore that went little-noticed, in 2004, Brown and David Bossie, working as the group Citizens United, make a movie called Celsius 41.11 and ran television ads attacking John Kerry.

David Bossie, who runs Citizens United, has paired with Floyd Brown for years. Bossie and Brown harassed the Clintons throughout Bill Clintons administration, with even George H.W. Bush calling his behavior in the 1992 presidential electionwhich included harassing the family of a recent suicide victimfilthy campaign tactics. After writing a 2000 book about Al Gore that went little-noticed, in 2004, Brown and Floyd Bossie, working as the group Citizens United, made a movie called Celsius 41.11 and ran television ads attacking John Kerry. In 1998, Bossie was fired from his job with the House Committee investigating Bill Clinton. When Bossie selectively released tapes, removing information that exonerated the Clintons, and improperly obtained phone records, even Newt Gingrich said he was embarrassed for the conference at the circus that went on.

Citizens United CU

OpenSecrets' original research indicates:

Follow the Citizens United Money:

The Courts Trump Congress

History of Corporate Personhood

Statement

States Struggle to Find Way in a Post-Citizens United World

The Numbers Don’t Lie

If you aren’t sure Citizens United gave rise to the super PACs, just follow the money.

[edit] Facts

[edit] Decision

"We the Corporations?"

Whose money is it?

History

Controversies

Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

Movies

Opposition to Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton

Opposition to Presidential Candidate John Kerry and to Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"

Opposition to the ACLU

Opposition to the United Nations

Role in Anti-Immigration Campaigns

Other Movies

Television Ads

Donatelli Group and the Swift Boat connection

Projects and affiliated programs

American :{Sovereignty:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: Action Project (ASAP)

Boycott France

Center for Government Integrity (CGI)

Citizens United for the Bush Agenda (CUBA)

Citizens United Foundation

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Counter George Soros

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2009

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The Supreme Court kills campaign finance reform.

Who is Behind these Lies?

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