Justices of the Montana Supreme Court
The Montana Supreme Court, let's be clear, did not quite overturn
Citizens United last week.
Its 5-2 decision did uphold a ban in Montana state races on corporations funding independent expenditure ads, but the benefits of this decision will be extremely short-lived.
First off, what happened here? The Montana law in question states that "a corporation may not make a contribution or an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political committee that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party." In other words, just like the federal law pre-Citizens United, no direct contributions to candidates, and (the issue here) no independent spending on their behalves.
So why did five Montana Supreme Court justices not see this as an open-and-shut case? What makes Montana different? According to the majority, it’s Montana’s unique history:
[T]he Montana law at issue in this case cannot be understood outside the context of the time and place it was enacted, during the early twentieth century. (Montana became a state in 1889.) Those tumultuous years were marked by rough contests for political and economic domination primarily in the mining center of Butte, between mining and industrial enterprises controlled by foreign trusts or corporations. These disputes had profound long-term impacts on the entire State, including issues regarding the judiciary, the location of the state capitol, the procedure for election of U.S. Senators, and the ownership and control of virtually all media outlets in the State.
Examples of well-financed corruption abound. In the fight over mineral rights between entrepreneur F. Augustus Heinze and the Anaconda Company, then controlled by Standard Oil, Heinze managed to control the two State judges in Butte, who routinely decided cases in his favor. K. Ross Toole, Montana, An Uncommon Land, 196-99 (Univ. of Okla. Press 1959) the Butte judges denied being bribed, but one of them admitted that Anaconda representatives had offered him $250,000 cash to sign an affidavit that Heinze had bribed him. Toole, Montana, An Uncommon Land, 204.
In response to the legal conflicts with Heinze, in 1903 Anaconda/Standard closed down all its industrial and mining operations (but not the many newspapers it controlled), throwing 4/5 of the labor force of Montana out of work. Toole, Montana, An Uncommon Land, 206. Its price for sending its employees back to work was that the Governor call a special session of the Legislature to enact a measure that would allow Anaconda to avoid having to litigate in front of the Butte judges. The Governor and Legislature capitulated and the statute survives. [...]
The State of Montana was still contending with corporate domination even in the mid-20th century. For example, the Anaconda Company maintained controlling ownership of all but one of Montana’s major newspapers until 1959.
This historical understanding is crucial to understanding the particular problems Montana faces with outside corporate influence:
History professor Dr. Harry Fritz, in his affidavit presented in the District Court, affirmed that the “dangers of corporate influence remain in Montana” because the resources upon which its economy depends in turn depend upon distant markets. He affirmed: “What was true a century ago is as true today: distant corporate interests mean that corporate dominated campaigns will only work ‘in the essential interest of outsiders with local interests a very secondary consideration.’” While specific corporate interests come and go in Montana, they are always present. Montana’s mineral wealth, for example, has historically been exported from the State, and that is still true today.
The problem, however, is that
the Citizens United majority already considered these arguments and rejected them. Basically, Justice Kennedy + 4 argued, independent speech doesn’t corrupt, and even if it did, well, that’s too bad:
Limits on independent expenditures, such as §441b, have a chilling effect extending well beyond the Government’s interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption. The anticorruption interest is not sufficient to displace the speech here in question. Indeed, 26 States do not restrict independent expenditures by for-profit corporations. The Government does not claim that these expenditures have corrupted the political process in those States. [...] [W]e now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. [...]
When Congress finds that a problem exists, we must give that finding due deference; but Congress may not choose an unconstitutional remedy. If elected officials succumb to improper influences from independent expenditures; if they surrender their best judgment; and if they put expediency before principle, then surely there is cause for concern. We must give weight to attempts by Congress to seek to dispel either the appearance or the reality of these influences. The remedies enacted by law, however, must comply with the First Amendment ; and, it is our law and our tradition that more speech, not less, is the governing rule. An outright ban on corporate political speech during the critical preelection period is not a permissible remedy. Here Congress has created categorical bans on speech that are asymmetrical to preventing quid pro quo corruption.
And that’s the
real problem with
Citizens United. It’s not that it equates corporations with natural persons. It’s that it fails to appreciate
the Founders’ deep concern with corruption as evidenced in the constitutional structure, and isn’t interested in any facts demonstrating that this concern can supersede the First Amendment interests at stake.
Which leads us to Judge Nelson’s dissenting opinion, which quite frankly is one of the best judicial opinions I’ve ever had the good fortune to be able to highlight for you. I regard it as great because he appreciates the limits of his judicial role, yet doesn't shy away from stating his views. As to the majority’s reasoning, these concluding paragraphs summarize his views well:
In sum, what has happened here is essentially this: The Supreme Court in Citizens United (and in White) rejected several asserted governmental interests; and this Court has now come along, retrieved those interests from the garbage can, dusted them off, slapped a “Made in Montana” sticker on them, and held them up as grounds for sustaining a patently unconstitutional state statute [...]
I am not persuaded that Montana’s experience with corruption is as “unique” as the Attorney General and this Court posit. Each state has its own corruption horror stories and has battled political and election corruption at one time or another. Even a casual examination of the daily newspaper or the evening news proves that battling political corruption is ongoing; like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, when you reach one end, you start over at the other.
In other words,
Citizens United is the law, and we’re all stuck with it until the Supreme Court says otherwise … oh, but by the way, Judge Nelson explains, it’s a
really lousy decision:
While, as a member of this Court, I am bound to follow Citizens United, I do not have to agree with the Supreme Court’s decision. And, to be absolutely clear, I do not agree with it. For starters, the notion that corporations are disadvantaged in the political realm is unbelievable. Indeed, it has astounded most Americans. The truth is that corporations wield inordinate power in Congress and in state legislatures. It is hard to tell where government ends and corporate America begins; the transition is seamless and overlapping. In my view, Citizens United has turned the First Amendment’s “open marketplace” of ideas into an auction house for Friedmanian corporatists. Freedom of speech is now synonymous with freedom to spend. Speech equals money; money equals democracy. This decidedly was not the view of the constitutional founders, who favored the preeminence of individual interests over those of big business [...]
[I]t defies reality to suggest that millions of dollars in slick television and Internet ads—put out by entities whose purpose and expertise, in the first place, is to persuade people to buy what’s being sold—carry the same weight as the fliers of citizen candidates and the letters to the editor of John and Mary Public. It is utter nonsense to think that ordinary citizens or candidates can spend enough to place their experience, wisdom, and views before the voters and keep pace with the virtually unlimited spending capability of corporations to place corporate views before the electorate. In spending ability, bigger really is better; and with campaign advertising and attack ads, quantity counts. In the end, candidates and the public will become mere bystanders in elections. [...]
Lastly, I am compelled to say something about corporate “personhood.” While I recognize that this doctrine is firmly entrenched in the law, I find the entire concept offensive. Corporations are artificial creatures of law. As such, they should enjoy only those powers—not constitutional rights, but legislatively-conferred powers—that are concomitant with their legitimate function, that being limited-liability investment vehicles for business. Corporations are not persons. Human beings are persons, and it is an affront to the inviolable dignity of our species that courts have created a legal fiction which forces people—human beings—to share fundamental, natural rights with soulless creations of government. Worse still, while corporations and human beings share many of the same rights under the law, they clearly are not bound equally to the same codes of good conduct, decency, and morality, and they are not held equally accountable for their sins. Indeed, it is truly ironic that the death penalty and hell are reserved only to natural persons.
So, what happens next? I anticipate that the plaintiffs here will seek a stay of the effect of this decision from the Supreme Court Justice responsible for the 9th Circuit—Justice Kennedy—and seek
certiorari to review the decision swiftly. (They have 90 days.) And, given
Citizens United, this may be a 9-0 summary reversal; at a minimum, there’s no way anyone in that majority changes his mind.