The Man Behind Citizens United Is Just Getting Started

[n2doc]

— By Stephanie Mencimer

May/June 2011 Issue


IN JANUARY 2008, James Bopp got laughed out of court—literally. The white-haired lawyer from Terre Haute, Indiana, was appearing before a federal three-judge panel in Washington, DC, to argue that his client, a small conservative nonprofit named Citizens United, should be able to air Hillary: The Movie on on-demand TV during the Democratic presidential primaries. Citizens United had produced the film to show that Hillary Clinton was a "European socialist" and ruthless political schemer—a cross between Machiavelli and Lady Macbeth who "looks good in a pantsuit," as Ann Coulter put it in the movie. Also featured was Kathleen Willey, who accused Bill Clinton of hugging and kissing her in the White House—and who suggested in the film that Clinton had helped hatch a plot to assassinate her cat.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) told Citizens United that it couldn't air or advertise the film during primary season, because it amounted to a 90-minute campaign ad that didn't identify who'd paid for it. In court, Bopp argued that the movie wasn't so different from what you'd see on 60 Minutes, and its creators deserved First Amendment protections.

At that point, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth laughed out loud. "You can't compare this to 60 Minutes," he said. "Did you read this transcript?"

No one was laughing two years later, when the Supreme Court reversed Lamberth's ruling and adopted many of Bopp's arguments—a decision that wiped out 100 years of precedent in campaign-finance law. Building on a key 1976 decision that campaign spending was a form of speech and therefore protected by the First Amendment, the justices in Citizens United v. FEC extended that protection to corporations. They ruled that corporations (which already are considered "persons" for many constitutional purposes) have First Amendment rights similar to those of average voters, and keeping them from spending money to support or defeat specific candidates is unconstitutional.

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http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/james-bopp-citizens-united

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[jillan]

1. And this is why we shouldn't snicker at the thought of President Bachmann.

[WillyT]

2. Kick !!!

:kick: