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US Supreme Court Expected Political Ad Transparency
T Murphy writes "The Supreme Court, when ruling that corporate and union political donations were allowed under free speech, assumed the source of the donation would be disclosed immediately under current donation laws. Due to loopholes, this has not been the case, eliminating the hoped-for transparency the Supreme Court ruled to be vital to democracy. Justice Kennedy, who sided with the majority on the ruling, has been called naive for his expectation that there would be greater transparency. In the meantime, campaign spending for House candidates alone is expected to reach $1.5 billion."
Yes, actually she did. Start on page 64. She is arguing that the law DOES cover books but you don't need to worry about it because the Government has never tried to regulate books and if it did there would be grounds for a legal challenge. You'll forgive me if I don't find that argument very compelling.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Perhaps you're not aware, but the Supreme Court didn't "make [a law] that depend[s] upon [an]OTHER law". The Supreme Court doesn't make laws, period.
The Court did apparently make assumptions about the implications of a particular interpretation, but that's pretty much unavoidable. It speaks to the excessive complexity of our body of laws that they could not predict the outcome correctly.
While I disagree with the Court's ruling, the I do not find such severe fault as you do with the specific detail of meaning (but apparently failing to say in a binding way) "...following the same rules as everyone else".
ink that the difference is that the constitution also makes no mention of organizations or corporations has have ANY rights.
That's completely irrelevant. Read the plain text of the 1st amendment: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech"
What part of "shall make no law" is so hard to understand?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
That used to be the case! A corporation, or really any group, was limited in the way it could fund a campaign. It could only give an amount equal to the limits of personal giving of each of its members, and they weren't allowed to give on their own outside of it. This SCOTUS ruling destroyed that!