Less than a decade ago, a monumental Supreme Court case, that many have heard of, took place. The court case was between Citizens United, a nonprofit conservative leading organization, and the Federal Election Commission, which regulates the amount of money being donated to politicians and their political parties. The court case was very divisive because it brought into question whether or not a corporation had the right to protected political speech just like an individual person does. Citizens United questioned the FEC’s regulation on corporate contributions in conjunction with an upcoming election. The response by the Supreme Court in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, was in favor of Citizens United. The Supreme …show more content…
The first legal concern was whether or not Citizens United had any grounds to challenge the BCRA disclosure requirements on electioneering communication. This question is regarding whether or not Citizens United qualifies to be included in the disclosure requirements. The second legal concern was whether or not the disclosure requirements were overly burdensome on Citizens United in regards to their documentary, Hillary:The Movie. This raises an important question about whether or not the requirements limited Citizens United right to free and protected political speech. The third legal concern was whether or not the documentary should be seen as telling the viewers how to vote, which would be considered electioneering communication. This concern relates to the next one because they both regard the classification of the movie that was produced. The final legal concern was whether or not the movie should be considered an advertisement or an informative and educational film. The answers and responses to these legal concerns and questions are important because they shaped not only the outcome of this court case but are currently shaping the way monetary contributions in politics are received. ("Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission
...nsible for the content of this advertising.” Citizens United, aware that the airing of Hillary during the 2008 primaries would be illegal, tried to obtain an injunction to preclude the Federal Election Commission from enforcing the McCain-Feingold Act, claiming that sections 201, 203, and 311 of the law violated the First Amendment. The Federal Election Commission, despite Citizens United’s efforts, held that broadcast of Hillary would violate the McCain-Feingold Act and proceeded to ban the film from airing on television. Citizens United, seeking injunctive relief, decided to bring its case before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. However, upon discovering that the United States District Court for the District of Columbia had denied its application, Citizens United decided to appeal the case to the Supreme Court of the United States.
In the case of U.S. v Jones, the judicial branch had to address the questionable topic of whether or not the Fourth Amendment was violated (). Since this case was not black and white and did bring up many questions as to what was constitutional, the judges had to use judicial review. Judicial review is the power that allows judges to interpret the meaning of laws (Class, March 13). Once a law is understood a certain way, the people must follow it (Class, __). The U.S. v Jones case deals with the Bill of Rights (United, 1). This is due to the circumstance that the Fourth Amendment is included in the Bill of Rights document stating that “searches and seizures” cannot be done without a warrant (Class,___). The case of U.S. v Jones was about the violation of Jones’s Fourth Amendment when a GPS device was placed on his jeep without his consent because he was suspected of drug possession (United, 1). Since judges have the power to informally amend the Constitution using judicial review (Class, ___), they must take into consideration many contributing elements when making a decision.
The Federal Election Campaign Act, despite being backed by 75 percent of House Republicans, and 41 percent of Senate Republicans, caused immense controversy in Washington. Senator James Buckley sued the secretary of the senate Frances Valeo on the Constitutionality of FECA. In the end, the court upheld the law's contribution limits, presidential public financing program, and disclosure provisions. But they removed limits on spending, including independent expenditures, which is money spent by individuals or outside groups independent of campaigns. This shaped most major campaign financing rulings, including Citizen’s United.
The past few years, I’ve taken an interest into our constitution. As a result of this interest, I would at times sift through interesting Supreme Court cases. Tinker v. Des Moines and Johnson v. Texas would, to some, conflict with cases like Schenck v. United States. The line drawn on the issue of free speech to others may be blurry, but to me, it has always been crystal clear. So when Super PACs, Political Action Committees that can donate unlimited funds to an independent cause, arose, I concurred with the Supreme Court’s decision to protect free speech. To most it seems, Super PACs are just evil PACs, and they, unlike regular PACs, ruin elections. They really only differ by their method, however, when discussing the movement of money. Super PACs are run “independently”, and PACs are usually partisan.
This assignment will cover a fictitious name of Mary Cooper a woman accused of harboring a fugitive, and illegal stolen equipment. The police attempted an illegal search and seizure in her home without a search warrant. This violates her Fourth Amendment rights. Cooper held that the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures require the exclusion of evidence found though an illegal search by state and local police officers, extending to the state a rule that previously applied onto to federal law enforcement.
It is very common among the United States’ political sphere to rely heavily on T.V. commercials during election season; this is after all the most effective way to spread a message to millions of voters in order to gain their support. The presidential election of 2008 was not the exception; candidates and interest groups spent 2.6 billion dollars on advertising that year from which 2 billion were used exclusively for broadcast television (Seelye 2008.) Although the effectiveness of these advertisements is relatively small compared to the money spent on them (Liasson 2012), it is important for American voters to think critically about the information and arguments presented by these ads. An analysis of the rhetoric in four of the political campaign commercials of the 2008 presidential election reveals the different informal fallacies utilized to gain support for one of the candidates or misguide the public about the opposing candidate.
In the presidential election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams to become the third president of the United States. The Judiciary Act of 1801 was passed which modified another act in 1789 that established ten district courts, six circuit courts, and the addition of judges to each circuit giving the president authority to appoint federal judges. The Marbury v. Madison was a landmark case in 1803 in which the court formed the basis for the exercise of judicial review. The landmark decision defined the boundary between separate judicial and executive branches of the American form of government. The Marbury v. Madison case of 1803 played a key role in making the Supreme Court a separate branch of government.
In theory, political campaigns are the most important culmination of the democratic debate in American politics. In practice, however, the media shrouds society’s ability to engage in a democratic debate with unenlightening campaign coverage. Because of this, it is difficult—if not impossible—to have educated political discourse in which the whole, factual truth is on display. After years of only seeing the drama of presidential campaigns, the American public has become a misinformed people.
Campaign finance reform has a broad history in America. In particular, campaign finance has developed extensively in the past forty years, as the courts have attempted to create federal elections that best sustain the ideals of a representative democracy. In the most recent Supreme Court decision concerning campaign finance, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court essentially decided to treat corporations like individuals by allowing corporations to spend money on federal elections through unlimited independent expenditures. In order to understand how the Supreme Court justified this decision, however, the history of campaign finance in regards to individuals must be examined. At the crux of these campaign finance laws is the balancing of two democratic ideals: the ability of individuals to exercise their right to free speech, and the avoidance of corrupt practices by contributors and candidates. An examination of these ideals, as well as the effectiveness of the current campaign finance system in upholding these ideas, will provide a basic framework for the decision of Citizens United v. FEC.
Their goal was to cast a shadow over this candidate and place her in the negative views of the electorate. In 2008, Citizens United completed the production of this documentary and they set out to air it on broadcast television (Sitaraman, 2014). As Citizens United was well aware, doing this within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary violates the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. This set into motion the historical case Citizens United v Federal Election Commission 2010. Before the Supreme Court, this case was compared to the precedent set in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which was dealing with a similar issue. It was expected of the Court to rule on the narrowly formed question originally presented, could this conservative lobbyist group, Citizens United, show their film? Citizens United argued that Section 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act violates the First Amendment and when applied to their documentary and its related advertisements, and the sections 201 and 203 were also unconstitutional when applied to the circumstances (Sitaraman, 2014). The United States District Court denied their order. Section 203 was not unconstitutional. The District Court also held that The Movie was not directly degrading towards Clinton
The right to free exercise of religion is stated in the First Amendment and was created in 18783. This clause would be mostly likely used by religion based corporations as they can dictate what insurance can cover among other subjects. Citizens United was mainly about companies making unlimited donations to indecent expenditures in political races. The reason Citizens United is related to the Hobby Lobby case is that it gave the idea that corporations are considered people which could be sued as a precedent to the Hobby Lobby case.
First Amendment protections were upheld in the case of Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844 (1997) (Reno, 1997). The Communications Decency Act of 1996 was found to violate the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech. In appealing the CDA, appellees were hoping that the court would determine that the CDA violated both First and Fifth Amendment rights. While the court agreed that the CDA violated First Amendment rights, they did not rule on the issue of Fifth Amendment rights violations. Both constitutional and criminal issues were being addressed in this appeal.
The First Amendment protects the right of freedom of speech, which gradually merges into the modern perspective of the public throughout the history and present. The restriction over the cable TV and broadcast media subjected by the Federal Communications Commission violates the freedom of speech, irritating the dissatisfied public by controlling over what can be said on the air. Should the FCC interfere with the free speech of media? The discretion of content being presented to the public should not be completely determined by the FCC, but the public in its entirety which enforces a self-regulation with freedom and justice, upholding and emphasizing the freedom of speech by abolishing the hindrance the FCC brought.
The advocacy explosion is strongly linked to the decline of the American political party and the role of the political parties in elections. As interest groups have gained more power and had a larger control over politics and political goods the power that is exerted by political parties has dwindled. The power of the interest group has grown larger with the amount of members and the financial rewards that have come with the new members. In elections interest groups do not usually participate directly with the candidate or the election. Berry points out that “Groups often try to leverage their endorsement to obtain support for one of their priorities” (Berry, 53). With interest groups spreading their resources around the actual election can be affected very minimally by the many interest groups that contribute money to the election. However, the candidates who obtain political office through the help of special interest money still owe some sort of loyalty to the interest group regardless of which party wins the election. This loyalty and the promise of more money in the future gives the elected of...
...the constitution to add “money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights” we as citizens of US should ask for a new amendment that will deal strictly with corporations. Part of this amendment should include a section where it specifically states that persons involved in decision making should be held accountable in court of law for the mistakes that corporation makes. Simple dissolution of a corporation does not solve or punish people who are in charge of decision-making that harm an individual or individuals. The hype that this case has made could be justified, but not for the reasons it is known for. If a company has extra money and would like to invest in a candidate of their liking than they should be able to do so. The reason we are so successful is due to competition and added money could add the edge.