Mark Schmitt on campaign-finance regulation and corporations:
There aren’t too many Supreme Court cases that can be called “truly momentous” even before they are decided. But when the Court asked to re-hear the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in a rare pre-term session this fall, it became clear that, even though the case itself is minor, the Court might use it as the opportunity to make a big change in the law regarding money in politics. But as week after week passes without a decision, the community of campaign finance reformers becomes ever more anxious that some of their most basic assumptions about what’s constitutional and what isn’t will be wiped out.
The case involves a video called Hillary: The Movie produced last year by the right-wing attack group Citizens United and broadcast through on-demand cable channels around the time of the Democratic primaries. The Federal Election Commission found the film violated the provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (BCRA, aka McCain-Feingold) that require communications that seem intended to influence an election to be paid for with hard money — that is, limited contributions from individuals or political action committees. But when it asked to hear the case again, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor sitting in David Souter‘s seat, the Court indicated that it might go much further than the case at hand.
