Last night, major corporations took over the airwaves and broadcast two political messages.  Then, they had commentary about the content and delivery of both speeches from government employees and paid political operatives.  Many were using the opportunity of camera time to effectively lobby the government to enact various policies and advocate a political agenda.

According to much of the comment (largely negative) surrounding the recent Supreme Court decision — Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which the Court overthrew limits on corporate funding of advertisements concerning political issue advocacy — our rights were trampled on by those corporations and their political message.  Surely those who lambasted the decision will be incensed by last night's display?  Surely those who have decried the forthcoming corporate takeover of elections are up in arms?

Don't bet on it.  You see, last night's event was President Obama's State of the Union speech, followed by the Republican Response given by Virginia Governor Bob O'Donnell.  The corporations in question were General Electric (owner, for the near future, of NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC), NewsCorp (owner of FoxNews and Fox Business Channel), Time Warner Corporation (owner of CNN), and so on — corporations that have media divisions.

The case in question involves a group called Citizens United.  According to their website, their mission is to "restor[e] our government to citizens' control" by "education, advocacy, and grass roots organization".  They are a non-profit corporation, and they have produced films such as Broken Promises:  The U.N. at 60, ACLU:  At War With America (an irony of which to be discussed below), Rediscovering God in America, and the one that got them tangled up with the FEC:  Hillary:  The Movie.

The movie is advertised as being for the person who "want[s] to hear about the Clinton scandals of the past and present" and is billed as "the first and last word in what the Clintons want America to forget".  The movie was produced by CU to influence the 2008 election against Mrs. Clinton's candidacy.  Unfortunately, however, while Citizens United is a non-profit organization, under the rules of McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform", corporations are banned from advertising and other activities during certain time periods during elections; the FEC decided that advertising and showing Hillary:  The Movie fell under those restrictions.

Citizens United had a broad range of support in their fight against the FEC from speech advocacy groups all along the conventional "left-right" spectrum.  The aforementioned American Civil Liberties Union — a target of CU derision in the past — filed an amicus brief on behalf of the group, as did the AFL-CIO (unions were included with corporations in the ban).  They acted alongside such conservative groups as Alliance Defense Fund and conservative lawyers such as Theodore Olson (chief advocate for George W. Bush in the aftermath of the Bush-Gore election in 2000 and later the Solicitor-General in the Bush Administration).

In standing with Citizens United, the Court recognized something simple and fundamental:  the actual wording of the First Amendment:  "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or ofthe press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble..."  There is nothing in the wording to suggest that such prohibitions are accorded only when the laws in question concern individuals but are null and void when free, voluntary associations of individuals (or, for that matter, coerced associations, as unions often are).  To uphold the prohibition imposed by McCain-Feingold, the Court would have to take the position that while Tom and Joe have free speech rights, should they pool their resources together, they then forfeit those rights.

There are many potential other pratfalls had the Court upheld the campaign prohibitions.  They would have essentially taken the position that a group of voluntarily-allied citizens would be banned from making a documentary or an interview of a particular politician, but a corporation like CBS would have no such restrictions on, say, a 60 Minutes piece.  This creates what would seem to me to be a huge inequity in the law, and a major source of potential government censorship.

As the author of the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy, wrote, "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailingcitizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in politicalspeech. ...When government seeks to use its full power ... to command where a person may get his or her information or whatdistrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to controlthought... The First Amendmentconfirms the freedom to think for ourselves."

Hear, hear.