Update: Under the Big Sky of Montana
Posted: January 6, 2012 Filed under: corporate money, court rulings, SCOTUS 14 CommentsWord is out that American Tradition Partnership will, in fact, appeal Montana’s Supreme Court decision last Friday on the question of 
upholding the state’s 100-year ban on direct corporate funding in state elections. The Montana decision was the first shot across the bow to the contentious SCOTUS Citizen United v. Federal Election Commission ruling in 2010, whereby money was equated to free speech and the virtual floodgates opened to corporate funds, influencing [corrupting] our electoral processes [see GOP primaries/clown show for a clear example of the corrosive nature of this decision].
John Bonifaz, the director of Free Speech for People, stated that he sees the appeal as a win/win situation.
“We believe there’s a win-win situation here,” said John Bonifaz, the co-founder and director of Free Speech for People. If the high court refuses to address the decision, he said, it could give a green light to other states to limit corporations’ political spending.
“If they take it up, there will be a new opportunity to push forward all the arguments as to why the court got it wrong,” he said. And if they reaffirm their prior decision, “that will only fuel the efforts further to allow a constitutional amendment,” he said, noting that he would expect the court to make a decision by late June or early July.
Judge Nelson, who wrote a principled dissent in the Montana case [mentioned in an earlier post on Sky Dancing] has indicated that he expects SCOTUS to take the case up and reverse Montana’s decision on the merits. He reiterated his position that Citizens United is the Law of the Land. However, Judge Nelson made clear in his original dissent that he found the theory of corporate personhood highly offensive and false.
Frankly, we need more judges like this, those with the courage to express their extreme distaste for a ruling, while standing on the firm conviction that the Rule of Law has meaning and purpose. This is what a principled stand is all about, frequently neither easy nor comfortable. We have watched a cascade of politicians giving lip service to ‘following the law,’ while doing just the opposite. Or the appalling examples down in Florida, the rocket dockets where judges merely rubberstamped decisions for mortgage servicers in fraudulent home foreclosure cases.
This is a case to keep an eye on. Either way it goes, I think John Bonifaz is correct—it’ a moment where an odious decision is being forced into the spotlight for reexamination. It’s an inflection point where the rights of people push hard against the ridiculous and destructive notion that corporations, artificial entities, are equal to human beings, afforded with the same natural rights while not being bound [as Judge Nelson clearly stated] “to the same code of conduct, decency and morality.”
One of my favorite Occupy Wall St. signs shouted out this same sentiment.
So keep those lips puckered for a cowboy. I may be forced to buy myself a cowboy hat! You rock, Montana!
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Go Montana! I may have to buy a new pair of boots this year.
Sorry for the OT comment but assuming this is true, it’s really disgusting and sort of amazing.
Monsanto Now Owns Blackwater (Xe)
Gawd, I hope that’s internet BS. Monsanto and Blackwater would spawn something evil beyond all imagine.
My thoughts exactly!
Congress could overturn this, right? Maybe having this go back to SCOTUS will force them to do something about campaign financing. I can dream anyway….
Conventional wisdom would say SCOTUS would overturn the Montana decision, That’s going to put a lot of heat on legislators to do something, like a constitutional amendment to stop this perversion of democracy.
Then again, I wonder if they couldn’t pass a regular law which codified corporations as “artificial persons” with legislated rights but no constitutional rights? That was the original treatment before the Southern Pacific RR case in the 1890s which declared them people. I may be wrong about that but if memory serves it might work. Corporations were “artificial persons” under the English Common Law.
I think I’ve heard Congresspeople saying they could do this with a law. I sure hope it won’t take a Constitutional amendment. Those take forever!
If SCOTUS accepts the challenge it will bring the issue to the fore, again, even if they knock the Montana ruling down, which most legal types predict they will. But this is already becoming a hot, hot issue. If SCOTUS refuses to hear the case, then all the other states that have similar bans on the books [I understand there are 20+] will be inspired, or at least the anti-Citizen United groups will be inspired, to bring their own cases against these corporate groups.
But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that this is a window of opportunity. The Dylan Ratigan group has managed to get the City Councils in LA and NYC to sign on to an Amendment to remove all corporate money from the process. If they go from city to city, town to town, state to state in addition to the growing petition from private citizens demanding a reversal, it can actually happen.
I may be foolishly optimistic but I’m sensing cracks in the fortress.There are a growing number of grassroot efforts. Bernie Sanders is pushing his own Amendment idea and more and more people are writing about the corrosive effects of all this money, how it’s corrupted and torn the system apart. In addition, the Occupy groups have a variety of actions coming down the pipeline [including both Conventions].
2012 could be a very interesting year!
This is just great! Buddy Roemer on Democracy Now.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/6/buddy_roemer_gop_pres_candidate_who
I wish the public at large would have an opportunity to hear Roemer. He’s talking the language most Americans would agree with. Rocky Anderson [Justice Party] is another voice that should be heard. Both men reject the legacy parties’ spin, which is same old, same old with a sliver a difference between the two–just enough to get people riled up and convince voters that there’s an appreciable difference, that they aren’t all doing the bidding of the kleptocracy that’s brought the country [even the world] to its knees.
That’s why I refuse to pull the lever for the Dems this time out, beyond legislators that have proven that they haven’t been bought lock, stock and barrel. The presidential elections right now are a wasteland–Obama on one side, the clown brigade on the other.
Buddy Roemer is on Rachel Maddow right now.
go Buddy!!!
Don’t you just have to love the guy? It’s good to see someone stand up and say what should be said and walk the walk in his campaign.
Go Buddy!
He’s never been afraid to say what’s on his mind. That’s what’s so refreshing.
h/t Charlie… Sing it, Mavis!