Former Justices Stevens & O'Connor Reject 'Citizens United' Ruling

Former Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor recently appeared to come to a similar conclusion about the majority decision reached by their former colleagues in Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Committee earlier this year: it was a "mistake."

In an interview between the two in Newsweek, Stevens, who stood on the dissenting side of Citizens United, characterized the final decision in the case as a failure that he would like to see readdressed:

O'Connor: I suppose the court has had occasion to change its view on certain issues over a period of years. Do you see any on the horizon that you think the court might well reexamine as things go on?

Stevens: Well, you know, Sandra, I dissented in a lot of cases, and I'd like [the court] to reexamine them all [laughs]. I don't expect them to, but I think they made a serious mistake in the [Citizens United] campaign-finance case, in which they overruled the portion of an opinion you and I jointly authored [on the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law]. And I think you might share my view.

O'Connor, who retired before the Citizens United ruling, then responded with a less direct criticism of the Supreme Court's final determination:

I notice that myself, and when I am asked about it, I often say, "Well, the court overruled part of what I wrote." And leave it there. It is a source of concern today, the extent of campaign contributions and whether corporations and unions must be held to the [same] standard as an individual. These are tough issues for the nation and the court.

A recent analysis of the effects of Citizens United found that $132.5 million, about 15 percent of all federal political spending in the recent election cycle, was channeled by anonymous groups or unlimited donations authorized by the Supreme Court's ruling.

Comments

[michael429]

06:22 AM on 01/24/2011

O'Connor's political and unprincipled decision re. Bush vs. Gore should shame her into silence....she speaks with zero moral authority...

[Hvacrpro]

09:50 AM on 12/31/2010

In Order for Democracy to be restored;

1. Make the State Courts follow the precedences of the Federal Courts and Sup Ct again.

2. Do not allow states to create laws that are not Constitutional or above the powers of the Union or that creates their own sovereignty or is based on race, hate, fear, skin color, and or ethnic cleansing.

3. No Conditional Appointments to any Judicial Branch... all elected only by and for the people and from the people.

4. Remove all Tax Shelters from Imports and any shipping and handling taxes , to apply to corporations.

5. Make Corporations sell their products to America at Fair Market global Value or international Value set prices... as the land they purchase them from or buy them from and farm out our jobs too and manufacturing industry.

6. Create a Constitutionality standard test of each law created in the creation stage of the law creation process.

7. Bring Ethic Reform to the Legislature senate and congress , to not accept a donation or kickback, through foundation or anything of value or while voting on any piece of legislation during or before for any vote promised or expected for donations, and that recusal , and if any donations made that from a percentage of a person on minimum wage from either corp, and not multiple donations over 5 in one year.

8. Remove all electoral re districting vote areas, and make them fair in percentage to per capita/party

[WhereIsTheTruth]

12:46 AM on 01/01/2011

I feel compelled to disagree with #3. The people of this nation should not be the arbiters of constitutionality. California is a case on point: Proposition 8 was voted for by the people but was unconstitutional. In that same vein, Iowa voters ousted some of the justices that ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

[WhereIsTheTruth]

12:48 AM on 01/01/2011

Likewise, #6 requires a constitutionality test - that's what the courts do. Legislators pass laws, judges are supposed to be weigh the law on the scales of justice to determine their constitutionality. It is not reasonable to expect that every law be approved the Supreme Court before it can become law.

[Hvacrpro]

09:29 AM on 12/31/2010

This is why people , we must put the rights and protections back into the peoples hands, and not into some bureaucrats hands or control.... Its simple, not complex, even the most affected voter with no college degree knows when their rights are affected in some biased way, it is commonsense. Conservative Corporatism is like Muslims trying to take over America. they want to run and control the world and the people and the religion . We need to make Corporatism serve the people and the govt not become to powerful to control the govt and the people with money with greed and influence of donations and kickbacks... we need to end the tax shelters for these corporations, and stop allowing them to sell to Americans the products and materials at a higher price than what they sell to other countries , because they want to make the working class enslaved to a service industry only.. and it is destroying American Democracy.

[thirdcloud]

09:33 PM on 12/29/2010

Does anyone really thing the Robert's Court with Sam Alito and Justice Thomas are really interpreting the Constitution as intended by the separation of powers as a non partisan neutral and detached Court? That is a pill too large to swallow!

Passing the Fair Elections Now Act is an essential first step toward restoring trust in our democracy. But if we want to guarantee that nothing will stand in the way of fundamental reform, then we have to write this reform into our founding document, the Constitution itself.

America can't wait for the Robert's Court to overrule itself. Be part of the Fix Not The Fight! FixCongressFirst.org is a project to Change Congress, a non-partisan advocacy organization whose sole purpose is to protect the independence of Congress by fighting the influence of money in politics.

(((Fix Congress First)))

[planckbrandt]

01:10 AM on 12/31/2010

Fix SCOTUS rulings first since they set the game rules in which Congress plays. We need whatever we needed to get 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act passed by a Congress full of slave owners' grandsons, and not overruled by a SCOTUS full of slave owners' grandsons! We need the very same thing today to enforce equal protection under the law of property rights for all citizens NOT just 1% of 3/10 of 1% who are given inordinate powers over electing politicians, and in propagandizing and dividing-and-ruling American citizens against themselves and their own best interests. This is not "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness", it is not "individual liberty" it is not equal protection under the law. Funny, "life, liberty, and property rights" is the lingo used in Enlightenment England as the natural rights of all Englishmen! Why not all Americans?

[thirdcloud]

02:57 AM on 01/02/2011

The way quickest way to fix the SCOTUS Citizen's United ruling is by legislation. The Supreme's aren't going to overrule themselves anytime soon. The Civil Rights movement came about by way of Commerce Clause interpretations. The Robert's court and their federalist approach holds no promise of help! The court lacks the integrity of CJ Earl Warren as I see it. Alito, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Roberts? Not a chance! They are all far too new on the court to actually function independantly from their appointing constituancy.

Campaign finance reform could be written into the constitution and there are several good suggestions that need to be developed further. Election reform needs to become part of the national debate and only a grass roots movement will likely get that done. American's need to understand this is not a partisan issue. It's an issue that could restore trust in our democracy which at this point, no longer exists.

[planckbrandt]

08:02 PM on 12/29/2010

O'Connor bears a lot of responsibility for the stolen election by Bush. Someone will have to get the details on how that came about from her before she goes. What dirt did CIA have on her that she had to be complicit with that ruling? Destroyed the Nation!

Dworkin book "the phalanx" about Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and their tool Thomas is very revealing about who they're chipping away already at Brown vs Board of Education. The Plutocrats always need a people to denigrate and scapegoat to distract the majority of voters and appeal to their sinister sides. They have them in this country with ethnic minorities. Brown vs Board of Education and everything else from the Post-New Deal court is getting chipped away. This country will be a cross between Venezuela and Russia for these 100M Gen Y kids and their kids!

Citizen's United follows 30 yrs old rulings that were supposed to level the playing field between business owners and unions for raising political money on the basis of property rights. The PACs they created, and the "money as speech" ruling that followed shortly thereafter along with the demise of unions by Reagan have tilted that playing field way in the opposite direction. If that Court along time ago under Rehnquist with these two tools O'Connor and Stevens had been serious, they would have seen that property rights for middle class people were not getting equal protection under the law for the last 2 decades. .

[thirdcloud]

07:00 PM on 01/02/2011

You raise a lot of complex issues and I agree with your summary of the Robert's Court. The war as I see it, is not against Brown v Board of Education or minorities at all. This is a Federalist Court and the activisim is against the 10th Amendment! Think power and prohibitions...all rights not specifically reserved for the federal government belong to the States.

I've not read Dworkin's book and would imagine that some points are interresting. My training in Constitutional issues give me some insight into what is over the hill. Going forward our Nation's democracy has been comproised and is seriously jeapordized by the influence of money and elections. I say this without regard to color or which side of the isle the discussion is coming from. Those arguments in my opinion are sensationalized distractions that detract from the focus that our democracy is about PEOPLE not entitites who leverage and inflluence with money.

Federalism is a difficult subject to understand at first but the design makes control and financial influence more efficient and powerful. Which is contrary to the intent of the 10th Amendment and the opposite edge of the Commerce Clause activism that made it an effective tool for the civil rights movement.

But the bottom line is a democracy governs people, corporations and unions are NOT people!

[david sarro]

05:41 AM on 12/28/2010

Appointing Justices Roberts and Alito to the US Supreme court was perhaps the most damaging aspect of George W. Bush's tenure as president. They are his Trojan horse, an under-the-radar attack on American democracy. As such, they constitute the gift that keeps on giving, and they'll continue to "give" for the foreseeable future. We are indeed in serious trouble.

[TurnToTheLeft]

10:39 PM on 12/27/2010

As always, thank you former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor for NOT MUCH.

[tedawson12]

10:11 PM on 12/27/2010

URGENT! Is it just me, or has the entire Government policy making capacity has our national issues, and their debacles become a D.A.D.T from the perspectives of our intellectual leaders? What the hell is going on there in Congress, I have vented this question a month ago. Why has not the Huff, the Nation, the Heritage, somebody of influence asked the Federal Capitalist on the Supreme Court, if a decision has a critical miscalculation on the American people can it be rescinded, like the Supreme Court allowing slaves and property to held by only "white men"now we know not only white female suffrage, education separation, electing Bush over the votes of a State should be "readdressed too." The Supreme Leader of one Supreme Court vote must now tell us how he (Stevens) can readdress giving god-like birth and person-hood to a corporate boards of 12 over 300 million individual real constitutionally valid voting people! I can not find in the arguments or Citizens United ruling how a corporation can be a human being. What page is it on? If it were really possible, would we not have lobbyist to do our individual bidding rather than politicians selling us out every hour of the day and week? Bye Bye America!! You so funny, you so poor!!! The next US Congress will drive the final nail in Americans coffin, you can bet on it! It will not take much to divide us from here.

[planckbrandt]

08:08 PM on 12/29/2010

this is a good one.."what page is it on?" There is a real cloud around that Corporate person hood thing and it was supposed to be a clerk who took liberties with the transcript. This issue needs to get dragged out into the light of day. Roberts needs to start overturning that one in the same way he is overturning Brown vs Board of Ed. As it is, he is a church going catholic in Bethesda but clearly his priest doesn't make sure this guy is getting all the Christian teachings about hypocrisy and being tools of the military elite screwing the people for money. He is a tool of the ruling elite reversing everything since FDR, and he hides himself behind conservative catholic christianity. Jesus had something to say about that for sure, but Roberts doesn't really care what Jesus says. He's just trading on him.

[amleth]

11:02 AM on 12/22/2010

The Citizens United ruling has dealt a devastating blow to our democracy. We are now only seeing the tip of this iceberg.

Much of the right has been leaping and dancing in joy over the ruling, and for good reason. It has moved us (and them) ever so close to the establishment of a corporate ruled republic; many of them cannot stop crowing about it. Many of them have long despised democracy and the common citizenry as well. They continue to say that America is ( and was intended) to be a republic alone, without democracy as a factor.

In Texas, educators (sic) have begun the creation of a false history, erasing many of the founders (Jefferson) from the historical texts taught in schools, and warping the picture of our nation received by innocent children.

Business, as practiced by many in the US, is a zero-sum game practiced not against other businesses, but against consumers and voters. Many of them want to own or control every substance and service in existence, in order to profit from them.

They have already begun an assault against free water sources, seeking to control them and thereby profit (Bechtel). People in Bolivia were enjoined from collecting rain water on their roofs when a corporation dealt with the government to control all of the water in that country.

Some even contend that the air ought to belong to them and people should be charged to breathe. While this is an extreme nut wing position, many current corporate attacks on goods, services and rights formerly considered essential to life and lliberty were unthinkable some years ago.

There will likely be some form of corporate feudal system in the near future, with what used to be free citizens transformed into serfs. These folks want a two tiered system of citizenship, with the coirporate masters on top and everyone else their servants. The scheme depicted in the film Rollerball, with five major corporate systems (Energy, Food, etc.) ruling the world is not unlikely.

Can't happen here?

Already happening.

Peace to the peaceful, confound the wicked.

[kinogod]

10:11 AM on 12/22/2010

This zupreme court is the most partisan in my lifetime. History will not be kind to these clowns like alito the knife fighter or scalia the bully or thomas the sell out or roberts the liar. Like king makers in red hats of yore these men should be run outta town on the first stage coach we can rig with wild wild horses.

[CPAwADD]

11:33 AM on 12/22/2010

I see Thomas more as the perjurer than the sell out, but otherwise spot on!

[planckbrandt]

08:12 PM on 12/29/2010

so glad to see someone else thinks what I think. However, the damage is way done.There will be no stage coach during our lifetime. There will be a revolution first. These guys are the last gasp of the Romanovs/Hohenzollerns/Hapsburgs and Saxe-Coburg cousins who have always owned this country's military industrial and mineral rights. They think they can keep playing the soak the people and send their kids to war game to get the capitalist out of control markets out of their deep doo doo! Eventually, the Europeans woke up and sicked some real serious constitutional democracy government laws on them. Someday the Americans will wake up too, once they see the Stockholm Syndrome thing they do to themselves here.

[Soulsurfer]

09:29 AM on 12/22/2010

How much money you can spend is not free speech or a limitiation of free speech. Period.

[R.W. Sanders]

12:42 AM on 12/22/2010

Got a feeling we ain't seen nothing yet.

[dennissinned]

11:50 PM on 12/21/2010

And thanks to Obama's sustained tax cuts, the windfall will be used to unseat him in 2012.

[polkarde]

10:36 PM on 12/21/2010

It's a no-brainer really...the Roberts Court made a disastrous decision in their ruling, which is nothing less than a full-throated assault on our democratic values and institutions...so for sure, this matter needs to be re-addressed as a matter of national urgency.

[Cindy Stipes Schneider]

06:19 PM on 12/21/2010

Gee Thanks!!! Now that there's nothing you can do about it, and we're stuck with your STUPID decision, you decide to cleanse your soul. Don't come looking to me for forgiveness, we're suffering due to your actions.

[Tsckey]

12:15 PM on 12/22/2010

I think you need to reread the piece. Justice Steven wrote an insightful and devastating dissent in Citizens United, and O'Connor was no longer on the Court when it was decided. Nevertheless, she does indicate that this abominable decision overrules her previous decisions, which leads me to suppose that she might have sided with Stevens had she still been on the Court.