Electioneering, AFL-CIO and the Supreme Court

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5493/electioneering_afl-cio_and_the_supreme_court/

Monday February 1 11:39 am

By Lindsay Beyerstein

The AFL-CIO has been sharply criticized for filing an amicus curiae brief in support of the conservative advocacy group Citizens United in its case against the Federal Elections Commission.

The recent Citizens United Supreme Court decision allows corporations to spend unlimited sums from their general treasuries on campaign ads. The decision has been assailed as the end of the campaign finance system as we know it.

Many within the labor movement, including leaders of some of the AFL-CIO's affiliates, have spoken out strongly against the ruling. Virtually everyone agrees that the decision is bad for the union movement. However, the AFL-CIO's role in the shaping the Citizens United decision has been somewhat misunderstood.

John Nichols of the Nation criticized the AFL-CIO for filing the amicus brief. He argued that the federation was a short-sighted advocate for looser restrictions on electioneering by corporations.

In a follow-up post, Nichols gives AFL-CIO associate general counsel Laurence E. Gold an opportunity to elaborate on the AFL-CIO's reasons for filing the brief. Gold stresses that the AFL-CIO is not happy about the Court's final decision. He explains that the AFL-CIO merely weighed in to continue its fight against restrictions imposed on unions by the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

In fact, the AFL-CIO urged the Court, as we have consistently since the McCain-Feingold Law was enacted in 2002, to invalidate on First Amendment grounds that statute's criminal prohibition against unions, other non-profit groups and (inevitably, the way the law was written) business corporations for broadcasting any messages that 'refer' to federal candidates, including incumbent officeholders, in the periods shortly before elections.

FULL story at link.

[JuniperLea]

1. A little late...

They should have qualified their first statements... a really stupid mistake.

[thunder rising]

2. Careful what you wish for ... when you deal with the devil. Happy now AFL/CIO?

[Indy Lurker]

3. Reminds me of a quote

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."

Louis D. Brandeis (November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was a United States Supreme Court Justice from 1916 to 1939.

or

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

************************

Although many people believe that Samuel Johnson said "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," he shouldn't get credit for this one.

Johnson said something close, but he was following in others' footsteps. In Boswell's Life of Johnson, in an entry marked April 14, 1775, Boswell quotes Johnson as saying (on some other occasion), "Hell is paved with good intentions." Note, no prefatory "the road to..." Boswell's editor, Malone, added a footnote indicating this is a 'proverbial sentence,' and quoting an earlier 1651 source (yet still not in the common wording).

Robert Wilson, in the newsgroup alt.quotations, provided two other sources prior to Johnson. John Ray, in 1670, cited as a proverb "Hell is paved with good intentions." Even earlier than that, it's been attributed to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), as "Hell is full of good intentions or desires." Just how it got to the road to Hell being paved this way, and not Hell itself, I don't know.