Supreme Court Won't Hear Appeal Over Corporate Campaign Contributions

[onenote]

54. As an individual I also am more limited in how far and wide I can spread my message compared

to other individuals. There are individuals out there that, as indviduals, have more resources than many "corporate" entities. Donald Trump, as an individual, has resources that dwarf the resources of Democratic Underground.

I agree that the amount of resources one has impacts how "much" speech one can engage in. Thus it has always been. Someone who can afford a computer has more ability to disseminate their messge than someone without a computer. Someone who can afford a sound truck has more abilty to disseminate their message than someone who only has a soapbox in the public square.

It appears that we are in agreement that CU was wrongly decided. As for why it was wrongly decided, I'm not sure if we are in agreement or not. If you are saying it was wrongly decided because (a) corporate entities shouldn't have first amendment rights or (b) expenditures of money should never be considered the exercise of free speech, then we agree that decision was wrongly decided but disagree on why. We are much better off with a first amendment that applies to corporate entities as well as "natural" persons (otherwise we'd have lost the Claiborne Hardware case, the Hustler/Falwell case, the Pentagon Papers case and on and on). And we are much better off with expenditures to disseminate a message being treated as a form of protected speech (otherwise the government could bar donations by DU or the expenditure of funds by DU to create this website).

What the court got wrong -- very wrong -- in CU was its rejection of long standing precedent holding not only that expenditures by individuals can be limited, but that expenditures by corporations can be limited to a greater degree than those made by individuals. Not because neither has first amendment rights or that expenditures are not protected speech, but because there are substantial governmental interests served by limiting such expenditures and the interests differ based on whether the entity involved is a person or a corporation.