Supreme Court justices appeared torn Tuesday over the constitutionality of the so-called "Millionaires' Amendment," a law that allows the opponents of rich, self-financing candidates for Congress to receive higher contributions from individuals and parties than would otherwise be allowed.
Led by Justice Antonin Scalia, several justices expressed doubt that the First Amendment allows government to manipulate campaign speech in this way, solely to "level the playing field" among candidates for office. "Do you think we should trust our incumbent senators and representatives to level the playing field for us?" Scalia asked at one point.
At another, Scalia asked whether, under the same theory, Congress could pass a law to help those who go up against candidates who are eloquent. "You make him talk with pebbles in his mouth, or what?" Even though the law does not cover presidential campaigns, the 2008 campaign for the White House made its way into the courtroom nonetheless.
Andrew Herman, the lawyer arguing against the provision in the case Davis v. Federal Election Commission, was suggesting that not all millionaires are such formidable candidates that their opponents need extra help.
"Certainly the public was not particularly interested in Mitt Romney, who spent a significant amount of money on his own behalf," Herman said, pausing to add, "and many other spectacular flameouts."
1 comment:
Mitt and his buddies will try again when they put the sixth corrupt follower of the GOP on the Supreme Court. Right now it's unbalanced with Justice Stevens. Now if Obama or McCain get in the majority will be for big business and the American people will have no justice in the Supreme Court.
On Boston Legal last night it showed how bias the Court is but they used comedy to get the point across. It worked I laughed because they had each Justice down pat with factual information about each one.
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