[lbo-talk] Supreme Court Agrees to Reconsider Citizens United; Occupy is awesome !

knowknot at mindspring.com knowknot at mindspring.com
Tue Apr 10 11:20:22 PDT 2012


c b wrote:

>Supreme Court Agrees to Reconsider Citizens United; Occupy is awesome !

>

>http://www.newser.com/story/143671/supreme-court-agrees-to-reconsider-citizens-united.html

The U.S. supreme court has not agreed to reconsider its Citizens United ruling.

By (interim) vote of some of the justices, it merely temporarily stayed the effect of a Montana state court ruling that upheld a state law prohibition against corporate spending in state elections, a case to which the Montana court rationalized Citizens United mostly did not apply on the grounds that the Montana litigation primarily concerned Montana state law and Montana state elections in the context of Montana's unique history.

But the Supremes have not yet granted certiorari or, as a court, indicated what principles of law the court would agree to review if it does grant certiorari, although it is at least possible that it will agree to grant such review and use the occasion to reconsider Citizens United at least in part or to reverse the state court's ruling while underscoring the breath and effectiveness of Citizens United.

And even if the Supremes do grant review (something we probably will not know one way or t'other until June), among the court's options is summarily to reverse the Montana court's ruling without merits briefing or oral argument.

We, non-members of the supreme court, therefore do not and cannot know or even reasonably predict what probably will happen.

Occupy may be (I'd like to think that it is) awesome! But yesterday's grant of an interim stay accordingly is very far from 'awesome' (even without the "!").



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