Bradley A. Smith on Campaign Finance Reform and Free Speech

The Citizens United case currently before the Supreme Court may radically reshape campaign finance law for years to come. Former FEC Commissioner Bradley A. Smith spoke at a forum on the case a day before the rehearing before the high court.

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News & Politics

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• citizens
• united
• free
• speech
• bradley
• smith
• FEC
• federal
• elections
• commission
• campaign
• finance
• law
• john
• storyofstuffproject

[Parent33w]

Nice vocabulary; very articulate absurdity. Answer two questions. What does any corporate legal fiction, or union for that matter, have in common with an individual person or " the people"? Even better, name ONE principle/element of separation of powers, federalism, representational majority rule, or individual rights that isn't INHERENTLY violated at the very core from the onset. Debating "Spirit of the Law" is unnecessary. The very mechanism of democracy itself is fundamentally violated.

[Ciaresayton]

By observation I can tell you would all be very successful on the tv show, Im smarter than a 4th grader, but why are you playing at-home jeopardy instead of commenting specifically on this video's topic?

$150.00 per INDIVIDUAL, per CANDIDATE, per ELECTION.

If the 30 million Americans who have their head up their ass each week until Ryan Seacrest tells them to pull it out to vote for their favorite singing pie hole, then we will never accomplish anything our inherant freedoms as voters allow

[MortuusTyrannus]

Yes, stop the government from granting favors to politically connected businesses. Not ban business.

[herbs814]

Marxism and Darwinism (the belief that accumulating power and control over others is necessary for survival) has led to the dominance of big government and corporations. This is a battle of political philosophy, not just legal tactics. Corporate personhood is just a legal tactic; a symptom of the Marxist-Darwinist delusion. If it wasn't for Santa Clara, they would have just found another way to impose their plan of dominance by marxist-corporatist control.

[herbs814]

If McCain-Feingold stands to limit free speech about politicians and their policies (limit the timing, content, and quantity of politial speech) during the most critical period immediately prior to an election, does that benefit the people? No. It benefits the corporations, whose lobbyists have access to power year-round. We need to be more concerned with asserting our individual rights... and less eager to take away the rights of others, such as corporations.

[adsense1]

Basically what I am saying is that it was the corporations and the pervertion of the 14th amendment that gave the government the very power of which you speak. I couldn't agree more about limiting the powers of the government. However the corporations do not agree. They want the government big and taxing and awarding contracts. When the judges began ruling that a moneyed corporation had the same rights as a citizen, the corporations began growing government. Corporate person hood has done it.

[herbs814]

The threat from a multinational corporation is its ability to buy government favors. Limit government power and you limit the threat of corporate power.

The answer to the government-corporate complex of big government and big corporations is to limit government power and allow consumers and small business to challenge corporate power. Power to the people, not the government-corporation complex.

[adsense1]

Corporations while they did exist at this time were usually formed for some civic enterprise by the people. It was natural to look upon this as a extension of the individual. Jefferson and Madison warned against the moneyed interest banding together and controlling public opinion. A corporation in these days was a highly nationalist tool. It would never dare go against the interest of the state. Measure that with todays corporation and Multi-national conglomerates. Jefferson Saw this clearly.

[herbs814]

Libertarians and conservatives are the hiers to Jefferson and Madison. Socialist democrats are the heirs to federalists and central bankers.

The danger is not in the assembling of citizens, such as corporations, but in the expansive government privileges that the government offers its political cronies in violation of the constitution. It is government power, not the first amendment, that needs to limited.

[adsense1]

Breaking with Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in 1791, Madison and Thomas Jefferson organized what they called the Republican Party (later called the Democratic-Republican Party) in opposition to key policies of the Federalists, especially the national bank and the Jay Treaty. He secretly co-authored, along with Thomas Jefferson, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in 1798 to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts. I also suggest you read Jefferson's letters from Paris to Madison.