High Court Rolls Back Campaign Spending Limits

[Berzerker]

If you're ok with using wrong terms its not my problem, its you that looks ignorant.

And thats called pure partisanship.

why is it pure partisanship?

By the criteria you quoted, today's decision was activist.

That may be true, if you think its judicial activism for the court to strike down unconstitutional laws. I dont, I consider that part of the job. Otherwise there aint no balance to the other branches. But I also know the phrase is somewhat subjective so I dont care, I dont make a fuss about judicial activism. Never have, so dont assume I'm one of these Republicans who rant about liberal activist judges.

 

[Karalysia]

I'm not a Republican or a Democrat, but wiki disagrees with you so go find something else to nitpick over, Jesus H Christ

Wiki is wrong, you're in luck I found my Const law book:

"When overturning legislation, the Court exercises a countermajoritarian power and substitutes its interpretation of the Constitution for that of elected representatives." Constitutional Law and Politics 7th Edition re. Politics of Constitutional Interpretation by David M. O'Brien p,72

Justice Frankfurter a strict supporter of judicial restraint held that "I am too opposed to judicial legislation in its invidious sense; but I deem equally mischievous the notion that judges merely announce the law which they find and do not themselves inevitably have a share in the law making."

"Judges as you well know cannot escape the responsibility of filling in gaps which the finitude of even the most imaginative legislation renders inevitable.....So the problem is no whether judges make the law, but when and how and how much."

THEREFORE activisim is not judges legislating from the bench or making the law, it is them overturning the the majoritarian institutions interpretation of the law.

And no, I enjoy nitpicking, I'm trying to become a lawyer. How could I not enjoy nitpicking?

 

[Berzerker]

Wiki is wrong, you're in luck I found my Const law book:

"When overturning legislation, the Court exercises a countermajoritarian power and substitutes its interpretation of the Constitution for that of elected representatives." Constitutional Law and Politics 7th Edition re. Politics of Constitutional Interpretation by David M. O'Brien p,72

Justice Hugo Black a strict supporter of judicial restraint held that "I am too opposed to judicial legislation in its invidious sense; but I deem equally mischievous the notion that judges merely announce the law which they find and do not themselves inevitably have a share in the law making."

"Judges as you well know cannot escape the responsibility of filling in gaps which the finitude of even the most imaginative legislation renders inevitable.....So the problem is no whether judges make the law, but when and how and how much."

THEREFORE activisim is not judges legislating from the bench or making the law, it is them overturning the the majoritarian institutions interpretation of the law.

And no, I enjoy nitpicking, I'm trying to become a lawyer. How could I not enjoy nitpicking?

is wiki wrong about this? And judges aint making law by knocking a law down, so when and how and how much is n/a

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. introduced the term "judicial activism" to the public in a January 1947 Fortune magazine article titled "The Supreme Court: 1947."[2] According to Keenan Kmiec, in a 2004 article in California Law Review,

“ Schlesinger's article profiled all nine Supreme Court justices on the Court at that time and explained the alliances and divisions among them. The article characterized Justices Black, Douglas, Murphy, and Rutledge as the "Judicial Activists" and Justices Frankfurter, Jackson, and Burton as the "Champions of Self Restraint." Justice Reed and Chief Justice Vinson comprised a middle group.[3]

Why is Black a supporter of judicial restraint according to your source while the originator of the term calls him an activist?

 

[Karalysia]

Ah correction, what I quoted was a letter from Justice Frankfurter to Justice Black. Frankfurter was the one who advocated the judicial restraint.

Hugo Black is an activist because of his willingness to overturn legislation by majoritarian institutions with reckless abandon. Here his view on the 1st amendment, he believed that under NO CIRCUMSTANCE, none at all, could the government IN ANY WAY regulate freedom of speech regardless of if it was military secret or not:

"My view is, without deviation, without exception, without any if's, but's or whereas, that freedom of speech means that government shall not do anything to people, or, in the words of the Magna Carta, move against people, either for the views they have or the views they express or the words they speak or write. Some people would have you believe that this is a very radical position, and maybe it is. But all I am doing is following what to me is the clear working of the First Amendment that 'congress shall make no law...abrigining the freedom of speech or of the press."

It's interesting because to Black, no law, really meant no law. But note he doesn't mention money or financial transactions in there. And this is the guy who allowed the press to publish classified information about the still ongoing Vietnam war.

 

[Earthling]

Bradley Canon posited six dimensions along which judge courts may be perceived as activist:

I don't know what you're quoting from but its nonsense.

What he quoted proves his previous use was wrong, anyway. Think we can agree on that.

 

[Berzerker]

if he could agree on that he wouldn't be telling us wiki is wrong

So the problem is no whether judges make the law, but when and how and how much."

Okay, I dont know the entire ruling etc but what I'd like to know is why knocking down McCain Feingold or some other campaign finance law is an example of a judge(s) making law? When? Where? How? and how much?

 

[Karalysia]

General rule of thumb, when it comes to anything beyond general reference wiki is either wrong, or lacks sufficient detail, or has been edited by a Turkish or Polish nationalist.

 

[Berzerker]

I know, and excuse my edits

but the phrase judicial activism is rather broad and subjective ie useless so why argue over it?

 

[Karalysia]

Because my professor drilled a particular definition of what constitutes judicial activisim and the difference between that and partisanship into our collective heads for over the course of the year and I'll be dammed if I'm letting anyone get away with misusing it.

 

[Berzerker]

so why is it pure partisanship for the court to legislate from the bench?

 

[RedRalph]

There was an article in the Washington Post about the increasing lobbying funds China is funneling into Congress. So yes.

I look forward to Gazprom picking the next POTUS

 

[Cutlass]

"People" made a movie about Hillary and wanted to advertise it, they couldn't because Dem primaries were going on.

And they could have been financed by private persons. Instead they used corporate leverage.

Thats nice, but libertarians didn't make the taxpayers the bailout of first resort. The 2 parties made us liable for Wall Street shenanigans, so lets get the facts right before laying blame, okay.

The bailout was only necessary because the libertarian idiocy of deregulating finance let the system take the stupid risks to bring it to the brink of collapse. No libertarian idiocy, no bailout. And don't think for a second that having Republicans in the majority would have stopped the bailout. They just would have had fewer controls and less mechanism to reclaim the money. And having libertarians in charge wouldn't have stopped it either, because the banks would have just paid them to bail them out.

 

[JerichoHill]

This is a horrible, horrible decision. So much for McCain-Feingold. So much for Obama's micro-donor 08 campaign model.

This is corporate lobbying taken to another level now. Corporations are free to influence elections.
The conservative side of me is taken aback by this ruling. It's an election game-changer.

There wouldnt be much issue if ads were honest and non-distortive, or if said ads were fact-checked prior to air or if everyone had access to a non-biased fact checker. But none of that is true.

Welcome to corporatism. I'm an economist, a fiscal conservative, and wholly dismayed.

 

[JerichoHill]

There was an article in the Washington Post about the increasing lobbying funds China is funneling into Congress. So yes.

--This--

Doesn't this more or less finished Obama in 2012, given that he's just pissed off all the banks?

Also, can foreign companies do this too? Or just American ones?

Soft money is still banned. That's money from corporations to political parties.

And RRW, I expect that any futures on Obama Reelection would have to be devalued sharply. Again, the problem is that facts don't matter since you can air ads up to the election day now, so there is no time for any fact-check to get out there. So the day or two before the election, i think its "My opponent kills babies" land.

 

[RedRalph]

And RRW, I expect that any futures on Obama Reelection would have to be devalued sharply. Again, the problem is that facts don't matter since you can air ads up to the election day now, so there is no time for any fact-check to get out there. So the day or two before the election, i think its "My opponent kills babies" land.

So we can realistically expect a Kenyan birth cert or two to appear... very bad news, seems the Republicans aren't finished as so many people though only a year ago.

 

[Patroklos]

Wow, seven pages and all the opponents of this ruling can do is continue to ?

I realize you guys don't LIKE this, but that is a far cry form any of you having made any logically coherent arguement against that of the bench. I don't like it either, but the way to solve such problems is not to blatantly violate the Constitution.

I assume you guys want to assault the Constitution primarily because you are too lazy to tackle the real problem which is social in nature.

 

[RedRalph]

I assume you guys want to assault the Constitution primarily because you are too lazy to tackle the real problem which is social in nature.

Please digress, this I've got to hear

 

[Patroklos]

The reason why special interests (which in no way include JUST corporations) can get away with blatant influence is because voters do not really care. We hem and haw about it, but people still vote for the candidate with the most corporate money (Obama).

The same goes for the pundists. We all talk on and on about how they are degrading discourse but they only reason they exist is because WE watch them or endlessly post about them. They are really no more than a reflection of ourselves.

 

[RedRalph]

The reason why special interests (which in no way include JUST corporations) can get away with blatant influence is because voters do not really care. We hem and haw about it, but people still vote for the candidate with the most corporate money (Obama).

The same goes for the pundists. We all talk on and on about how they are degrading discourse but they only reason they exist is because WE watch them or endlessly post about them. They are really no more than a reflection of ourselves.

Can't say fairer than that. People's conciousness is very low. You and me should start a revolution

 

[Patroklos]

I can only imagine what that would look like