"Citizens United": The Supreme Court Decision One Year Later

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
Contact

The Supreme Court issued its landmark opinion in Citizens United v. FEC one year ago today. That case allowed corporations and labor unions to make independent expenditures for or against political candidates. An editorial in today's Washington Post by the President of Citizens United and its lead counsel argues that the hysteria following that decision was unfounded because the amount spent by citizen groups in the last election paled in comparison to the amount spent by the Democratic and Republican parties and by the candidates themselves. Rather, the authors argue, the primary political speech to come out of the Supreme Court's decision has been that of independents, and politicians are upset by this because they cannot control the speech of independents.

As a reminder, the Supreme Court case arose as a result of a film directed against then Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. Citizens United was a nonprofit corporation that produced the film, and there was debate whether this was a "documentary" or an "electioneering communication," as well as whether distribution via video on demand constituted "public distribution" of the film. The Supreme Court found that the film was indeed an "electioneering communication" and that VOD was likewise a public distribution of the film. Thus, Citizens United ran smack up against the FEC prohibition on independent corporate political expenditures.

Please see full publication below for more information.

LOADING PDF: If there are any problems, click here to download the file.

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

© Davis Wright Tremaine LLP | Attorney Advertising

Written by:

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
Contact
more
less

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP on:

Reporters on Deadline

"My best business intelligence, in one easy email…"

Your first step to building a free, personalized, morning email brief covering pertinent authors and topics on JD Supra:
*By using the service, you signify your acceptance of JD Supra's Privacy Policy.
Custom Email Digest
- hide
- hide