Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on January 21, 2010, ruled (5–4) that laws that prevented corporations and unions from using their general treasury funds for independent “electioneering communications” (political advertising) violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. In so doing the court invalidated Section 203 of the federal Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA)—also known as the McCain-Feingold Act for its sponsors, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Russ Feingold—as well as Section 441(b) of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA), which the BCRA had amended. The court also overturned in whole or in part two previous Supreme Court rulings: Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003).

Immediately perceived as historically important, the decision generated intense controversy outside the court. Some hailed it as a resounding victory for freedom of speech, while others criticized it as an overreaching attempt to rewrite campaign finance law. Among the critics was Pres. Barack Obama, who remarked in his State of the Union address in the House of Representatives one week later that the decision would “open the floodgates for special interests…to spend without limit in our elections.” His criticism provoked one of the Supreme Court justices in attendance, Samuel A. Alito, to break decorum by mouthing the words “not true.”

Background

The case arose in 2008 when Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit corporation, released the documentary Hillary: The Movie, which was highly critical of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president of the United States. Citizens United wished to distribute the film through video-on-demand services to cable television subscribers within a 30-day period before the start of the 2008 Democratic primary elections and to advertise the film in three specially produced television commercials.

The BCRA, however, had expanded the scope of FECA’s ban on corporate and union contributions and expenditures “in connection with” political elections (Section 441[b]) to include “electioneering communications” paid for with corporate or union general treasury funds (Section 203). It defined “electioneering communications” as “any broadcast, cable, or satellite communication” that “refers to a clearly identified candidate for Federal office” and is made within 60 days before a general election or 30 days before a primary election. Neither FECA’s Section 441(b) nor BCRA’s Section 203 prohibited corporations or unions from engaging in electioneering communication or expressing advocacy by means of political action committees (PACs), which are funded through the voluntary contributions of individuals. In McConnell v. Federal Election Commission the Supreme Court upheld Section 203 as constitutional. McConnell, in turn, relied on the court’s finding in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce that the government may prohibit corporations from using general treasury funds for independent political expenditures (expenditures that are not coordinated with any political campaign) as a means of preventing corporations from “distorting” the political process and to reduce corruption or the appearance of corruption.

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Anticipating that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) would impose penalties, Citizens United sought an injunction in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., alleging that Section 203 was unconstitutional as applied to Hillary because the film did not fit the law’s definition of an electioneering communication and because it did not constitute “express advocacy [for or against a candidate] or its functional equivalent,” as required by the court’s decision in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2007). Citizens United argued further that provisions of the BCRA requiring the filing of disclosure statements and the clear identification of sponsors of election-related advertising were unconstitutional as applied to Hillary and to the television commercials it planned to air. (Such “as-applied” challenges to the constitutionality of a statute are distinct from “facial” challenges, which allege that a statute is unconstitutional on its face.)

Majority opinion

After the district court ruled against Citizens United on all counts, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari, and oral arguments were first heard on March 24, 2009. The court then asked the parties to file supplemental briefs on the question of whether one or both of Austin and the part of McConnell that affirmed the validity of Section 203 should be overturned. The case was reargued in a special session during the court’s summer recess on September 9, 2009. The court’s majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, held that Section 441(b) was unconstitutional on its face; accordingly, both Austin and the relevant part of McConnell were overruled.

In order to justify its consideration of the facial constitutionality of 441(b), which had been affirmed in McConnell and presumably was not at issue in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the court argued that it was impossible to decide the case on narrower grounds in a manner consistent with its conviction that “this corporation has a constitutional right to speak on this subject.” Not only were Citizens United’s narrower arguments “not sustainable under a fair reading of the statute,” but there was no principled way of removing Citizens United from the scope of the BCRA that would not itself prolong or contribute to “the substantial, nation-wide chilling effect caused by §441b’s prohibitions on corporate expenditures.”

Because 441(b) was, in the court’s view, an onerous ban on political speech (notwithstanding the availability of political action committees), it could be justified only if it were narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. But neither the majority opinions in Austin and McConnell nor the supplemental brief submitted by the government demonstrated that Section 441(b) passed this test. As an instrument for furthering the state’s antidistortion interest, Section 441(b) permitted the government to assign different free-speech rights to different speakers based on their identity as corporate or individual, a premise rejected in the court’s decision in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978). In addition, the law would allow the government to ban the political speech of media corporations, including newspapers—though such corporations were specifically exempted in the Michigan law upheld in Austin and in Section 203 of the BCRA. More generally, according to the majority, the suppression of any political speech by corporations would interfere with the “marketplace of ideas” by preventing the “voices and viewpoints” of corporations from “reaching the public and advising voters on which persons or entities are hostile to their interests.”

The court also held that the state’s interest in preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption, though compelling, was not narrowly served by Section 441(b), because the independent expenditures it banned were by definition not coordinated or prearranged with a candidate or a campaign and therefore could not give rise to a quid pro quo in which votes are exchanged for money. Although such expenditures could ingratiate a corporation with and lead to greater access to a candidate, “ingratiation and access…are not corruption.” Regarding the government’s contention that Section 441(b) narrowly served the state’s interest in protecting the right of corporate shareholders not to fund political speech with which they disagree, the court held that this and other interests of shareholders were already adequately protected by the institutions of “corporate democracy.” The court concluded that “no sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.” Although thus agreeing with Citizens United’s claim that Section 203 was unconstitutional as applied to Hillary, a majority of the court (8–1) disagreed with the group’s contention that the disclosure-and-identification requirements of the BCRA were also unconstitutional as applied (this part of the court’s decision later became the basis of several lower-court rulings upholding the constitutionality of such requirements). The majority opinion was joined in full by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito and in part by Justice Clarence Thomas. Roberts and Scalia also filed separate concurring opinions, while Thomas filed a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.