SCOTUS under Trump

Until the next time someone disagrees with you and then you’ll be happy to cry about it again.

Sure, but the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act is not sacrosanct. It could be repealed and replaced by the “2019 No More Ads From The DNC Act”. And if the SCOTUS had decided against Citizens United, then the 2019 NMAFTD Act would be perfectly constitutional.

Folks, chill out. Nothing good is gonna come from it.

How is Citizens United, a conservative action group, not a political association?

If AT&T wants to become politically active, how are they likewise not a political association? Nothing in the constitution suggests a political association can’t sell stuff.

You keep saying this like it’s certain, but the Constitution explicitly guarantees people the right to [political] assembly, not for-profit corporations. Would a future law refuse to distinguish between political parties and corporations? Who knows? Would that stand up to a challenge? Who knows, but it certainly shouldn’t.

And, again, the current law treated corporations exactly the same, regardless of their ideological tilt or purpose for being.

I am natural-born citizen of the United States, whose rights and obligations are fundamentally defined by the Constitution. AT&T is a corporation, a legal fiction whose rights and obligations are defined by laws enacted by a legislature* So I suppose the proper way to do campaign reform is to outlaw corporations? And I suppose non-profits for good measure.

*modulo a drafting error in an SC opinion declaring corporations people…

Seriously, you should give up trying to argue this point. Lots of Supreme Court cases have narrow application, but there have been a raft of rulings that have been insanely consequential.

A. All the major media had some recounts showing Bush won, but other recounts from some of the same media companies showed Gore won; all depends on the scope and methodology of the recount. Given all the issues with the Florida ballots, there is little doubt that a greater number of voters in Florida intended to vote for Gore than Bush. The Supreme Court never gave a reasonable rationale for why they removed the recount process from the oversight of the Florida judiciary, where it belonged (probably the fairest outcome would’ve been for the Florida electors to have abstained from voting, which would’ve sent the election to the House, which means Bush would’ve been made president anyway…)

B. The aim of Sebelius was to overturn ACA entirely, and with a different court it might’ve happened. Then the Supreme Court would’ve been undoing the clear intentions of the legislature and affecting nearly every American

C. There might not be that many millions of gay folks getting married, but I’m not gay, and I’ve been to three gay weddings since Obergefell, so it clearly has affected my life and the lives of millions of other non-gay Americans. More seriously, legalized persecution of sexual minorities is an affront to human dignity that affects all Americans.

D. Shelby has almost certainly affected people in every jurisdiction that previously had prior review that has changed its voting laws (typically, I imagine, with voter ID requirements) since the ruling. I am sure that this amounts to millions of people.

Among other household name cases, in Heller the Court overturned 70 years of precedent and has certainly affected millions of people, by striking down gun laws in places where millions of people lived.

Eh… Do you have some actual evidence suggesting this is the case?

Let’s just say that hanging chads is not an incel reference.

It would be perverse to deny the existence of evidence to this effect. Evidence isn’t proof, but there’s certainly evidence.

In any event, for the purposes of the argument about consequences of SCOTUS decisions, it doesn’t matter which way SCOTUS decided in Bush v Gore. Deciding the other way would still have been hugely consequential.

The arguments about (pro-) Citizens United are weird to me. There are obvious differences between people associating to conduct business, which as a group are given some rights and responsibilities separate from the individuals, and people associating to conduct political activity, which as a group are given different rights and responsibilities. We already have separate systems in place for them and treat them differently in myriad ways. But for this you’ve (not any particular poster) decided to argue that we have to treat them the same because one might as well be the same as the other. Does not follow to me.

And I think the implication that individual free speech rights apply to corporations is clear in the CU decision, and I think that’s a huge mistake. We shouldn’t be granting more rights to corporations, they already have serious protections that people don’t have, never mind the clear power imbalance that is also ever present in this society.

The main evidence is that Buchanan got way more votes in, I think, Palm Beach county with it’s bad ballot design than iin counties with similar demographics and less brain-dead ballots. Statistical evidence suggests that thousands of people who intended to vote for Gore marked their ballots for Buchanan instead. Bush was awarded Florida because.Republicans controlled the state government and did much better at media messaging. The Supreme Court decision was greatly influenced by the media coverage.

I think that’s fair, although there’s a problem with doing a focused recount in only certain counties, in order to try to go further and determine voter intent in cases of overvotes. You would need to apply the same extra scrutiny in every district in order to get a better idea of the overall intention of the entire state.

That being said, i will grant that i had forgotten about the crazy butterfly ballot.

First of all, we are not talking about people associating purely to conduct business, because by definition they are not affected by CU. So we are talking about people associating to conduct business and political activity, e.g. AT&T, and people associating only to conduct political activity. Of the latter, no examples come to mind. Everyone sells mugs after all.

Secondly, even if it is easy for you to distinguish between AT&T and the DNC, there is no constitutional basis for doing so. Just like it’s easy to distinguish between lawyers and dentists, but no constitutional basis for that distinction. So if the legislature gives one group the right to argue before a judge and the other the right to pull teeth, then a future legislature can take away those rights.

And that’s what this is about: coming up with something that is future-proofed to protect groups like the DNC without relying on an acquiescent legislature. Because, as you may have noticed, lately Congress has not reliably acquiesced to institutional norms. If you are actually concerned about an authoritarian descent into fascism, then CU is a good thing.

It’s way more than that. Several media organizations got together and commissioned a research project to go and count all the votes by various standards. The outcome was that if all the votes in Florida had been carefully re-counted, Gore would have won. The counter argument (which is the thing that makes Strollen’s statement that “Bush won election by recounts conducted by all the major media groups” not completely false) is that if you only recount the votes in the counties that Gore was suing to have recounted, Bush would have won.

That is a pretty crappy standard though. “Our guy wins if you only count some of the votes!”

Just go ahead and call me gobsmacked by your logic and we’ll leave it at that for now.

Edit: that isn’t supposed to be accusatory. I mean that I am gobsmacked.

That’s the BDO study, right? Didn’t that only count Palm Beach?

Thanks, I think.

I think it’s unfortunate that people look at CU as a zero sum game. If it helps “the other side” or reduces “our influence” then obviously it was a bad decision. But that’s not how the SCOTUS should work. The decision is justified if the principles are justified, regardless of whether if it helps AT&T at my expense.

I don’t disagree with CU decision on it’s merits legally. I don’t disagree with it in a partisan way (Democrats get shit tons of corporate money too). I disagree with giving individual rights to corporations without at least clawing back the protections incorporating has granted them. Corps are way too powerful and if we don’t recognize this I wonder if with control of capital, robotic and AI workers, and the current and future ability of modern weapons to suppress all insurrection, that we might be headed back to something like a feudal age. (Really long term)

Edit: I also get how you might see this as not really germane to the discussion, and that would be fair. :)

Rollerball was an awesome movie.
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