The U.S. Supreme Court is currently reviewing a case with enormous ramifications to our political system.  At issue is the case involving Citizens United on Hillary Clinton, and the 90-minute hit job perpetuated on her during the ‘08 election known as “Hillary:  The Movie.” The decision before the court revolves around the right of corporations to spend unlimited gobs of money to instigate attacks on a candidate right up to the election. Chief Justice Roberts seems to have bought into the opinion of Scalia that “corporations are an individual.”

From the Slate article by Dahlia Lithwick:

When we first met this case, it involved a narrow question about whether a 90-minute documentary attacking Hillary Clinton could be regulated as an “electioneering communication” under McCain-Feingold. The relevant provision bars corporations and unions from using money from their general treasuries for “any broadcast, cable or satellite communications” that feature a candidate for federal election during specified times before a general election. A special three-judge U.S. District Court panel agreed with the FEC that the movie could be regulated. Citizens United, the conservative, nonprofit advocacy group that produced the film, appealed. The issue last spring was whether a feature-length documentary movie was core political speech or a Swift Boat ad. But the court surprised everyone when it ordered the case reargued in September, this time tackling the constitutionality of McConnell and Austin.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas are already on record wanting to overturn these cases. Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts have been inclined to wait. The question today is whether we wait no more.

One of the ways the Roberts Court hopes to make all conflicting case law in the campaign finance realm disappear is to blame all prior bad case law on Kagan. When everyone is thoroughly confused about what rationale the government may advance in order to limit corporate spending, Roberts can gleefully conclude that all of Austin “is kind of up for play. …” Poof. And Austin is a problem no more.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opines that this case, for her, is about the horrifying prospect of granting First Amendment rights to “today’s mega-corporations, where many of the investors may be foreign individuals or entities.”

Considering the enormous influence corporations and industries already have on candidates via ungodly PAC contributions, I personally am not comfortable with the effect of a mere “threat” to produce a movie against a candidate and how that might influence some decision making.

This case brings up another issue which has been on the table for some time now:  Should cameras be installed in the Supreme Court chambers as an accurate record of the arguments and proceedings therein? Several nations already have instituted the policy, and currently Australia is looking to model their recording of judicial proceedings after the New Zealand format, making clear that they are “NOT suggesting the American approach or a holus-bolus approach to this.”

Would you be interested in seeing cameras in the Supreme Court proceedings?

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