The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United vs. FEC has provided ample fodder for the Court’s critics.  Well, last night during the President’s State of The Union speech, Justice Samuel Alito’s disagreement with the President’s statement about Citizens provided even more.

As the President echoed what scholars, politicians, and former justices have espoused in recent days Justice Alito can be seen mouthing his disagreement as “that’s not true.”

What the President, other critics of the Court’s decision, and yours truly have all stated since the Court’s ruling is that this decision opens the floodgates to corporate money in our politics and even allows for foreign influence by domestic subsidiaries of foreign corporations.

This point was addressed extensively by the dissent in the case.  Justice Stevens, stated in his dissent that “[i]t would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans.”  This point was neither dealt with nor addressed by the majority.

Stevens continued in his dissent, “The Court all but confesses that a categorical approach to speaker identity is untenable when it acknowledges that Congress might be allowed to take measures aimed at preventing foreign individuals or associations from influencing our Nation’s political process. . . .Such measures have been a part of U.S. campaign finance law for many years. The notion that Congress might lack the authority to distinguish foreigners from citizens in the regulation of electioneering would certainly have surprised the Framers.”

Normally when the majority writes an opinion, especially an opinion that turns on its head a century of law, the authors attempt to address all concerns of the minority dispelling each one.  The Justice’s simply retort last night “that’s not true” simply isn’t good enough.

Justice Alito was wrong in Citizens United and he was wrong again last night.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.