Citizens United v. FEC

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court having that the very first Amendment forbids government from censoring political broadcasts in candidate elections when those broadcasts are financed by corporations or unions. The 5-4 decision originated in a dispute more than whether or not the non-profit corporation Citizens United could air a film critical of Hillary Clinton, and whether or not the group could advertise the film in broadcast ads featuring Clinton’s image, in apparent violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly known as hard money lenders the McCain-Feingold Act in reference to its primary Senate sponsors. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) (McCain-Feingold Act), two U.S.C. § 441b, prohibited corporations and unions from utilizing their general treasury funds to make “electioneering communications” (broadcast ads mentioning a candidate within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a common election). During the 2004 presidential campaign, Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit 501(c)(four) organization, filed a complaint prior to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) charging that ads for Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11, that was vital of the Bush administration’s response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, constituted political advertising and therefore cannot be aired 60 days before an election or 30 days prior to a party convention. On August five, the FEC ignored the complaint discovering no proof that the movie’s microdermabrasion machines ads had broken the law. On June 29, 2009, the Supreme Court issued an order directing the parties to reargue the case on September 9 after briefing whether or not it might be necessary to overrule Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and/or McConnell v. Federal Election Commission to decide the case. Justice Stevens noted in his dissent that in its prior motion for summary judgment Citizens United had abandoned its facial challenge to Section 203, with the parties agreeing to the dismissal of the claim. Stevens argued that the Court chose to hear argument on issues the parties had agreed had been not to be presented to the Court and that it reached a choice on constitutionality when it could have discovered for the plaintiffs on narrower grounds. The choice reached the Supreme Court on appeal from a January 2008 decision by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The lower court choice had upheld provisions of the 2002 act, which prevented the camcorder stabilizer film Hillary: The Movie from being shown on tv within 30 days of 2008 Democratic primaries. The Supreme Court reversed the lower court, striking down metal detector those provisions of the McCain-Feingold Act that prohibited all corporations, each for-profit and not-for-profit, and unions from broadcasting “electioneering communications.” An “electioneering communication” was defined in McCain-Feingold as a broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that mentioned a candidate within 60 days of a common election or thirty days of a main. The decision overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and partly overturned McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003). McCain-Feingold had previously been weakened, without overruling McConnell, in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2007). The Court did uphold needs for disclaimer and disclosure by sponsors of advertisements. The case didn’t involve the federal ban on direct contributions from corporations or unions to candidate campaigns or political parties, which remain illegal in races for federal workplace. President Barack Obama mentioned that the choice “gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington – whilst undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates”. Obama later elaborated in his weekly radio address saying, “this ruling strike and “I cannot think of anything more devastating tankless water heaters to the public interest”. On January 27, 2010, Obama further condemned the choice during the 2010 State of the Union Address, stating that, “Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for unique interests – which includes foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections. Well, I don’t believe American elections be bankrolled by America’s most interests, or worse, by foreign entities.”