The Left Still Cannot Silence the Opposition

On Monday, June 25, 2012, in a short opinion, the United States Supreme Court again upheld the First Amendment rights of corporations to engage in political speech. This decision reaffirms the vision of the drafters of our Constitution that there be a robust “marketplace of ideas” in which the American people, not government censors, decide what ideas and principles are worthy of acceptance.

In American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock, the Court struck down a Montana law, by a 5-to-4 vote, that prevented corporations from making political contributions. The Montana law stated that “a corporation may not make . . . an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political committee that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party.” In so ruling, the Court reaffirmed its 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision in which the Court had invalidated a federal law that prohibited corporations and unions from making financial contributions for or against political candidates because the law violated the First Amendment.

With Bullock, the Supreme Court has made it clear that neither federal law nor State law may prohibit corporations and unions from making unlimited political expenditures so long as those expenditures are independent of a campaign.

In 2010, the Citizens United decision led to large contributions to Super PACs, which used that money to support and oppose candidates in the mid-term federal elections. Bullock will now lead to Super PACs being funded to support and oppose candidates in State and local elections.

Opposition to these two decisions comes mainly from those on the Left. The opposition, though, is focused on only one aspect of the decisions, that is, that corporations get to make political expenditures, presumably because those on the Left think corporations will support conservative candidates and oppose liberal candidates. You will not hear a peep, however, from those on the Left about how unions can also spend unlimited amounts because unions typically support liberal candidates and oppose conservative candidates.

Through their opposition to these decisions, those on the Left have revealed their hypocrisy. They claim to be in favor of free speech. But, they only support speech they favor and work to silence speech they disfavor. For example, think about the fairness doctrine those on the Left often attempt to reinstitute to silence conservative talk radio since they are unable to compete in that arena successfully.

In his concurring opinion in Citizens United, Chief Justice Roberts responded to the arguments of the Obama Administration, which was opposing corporate spending at the same time it was advancing the Left’s goal to silence the opposition:

The Government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech. It asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concern. Its theory, if accepted, would empower the Government to prohibit newspapers from running editorials or opinion pieces supporting or opposing candidates for office, so long as the newspapers were owned by corporations—as the major ones are. [Under the Government’s theory, if accepted,] First Amendment rights could be confined to individuals, subverting the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy.

With Bullock, the Court has reasserted that the government, whether federal, State, or local, cannot silence political speech it does not like. As the Court explained in Citizens United, “Government may not suppress political speech on the basis of the speaker’s corporate identity. No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.”

Thus, the political speech offered in this coming election year should prove as robust as in the 2010 election year, if not more robust, which will only benefit our country and our political process.