The Latest News from the Brennan Center: Supreme Court Reaffirms Citizens United
See all these stories in full and all the latest news on the Brennan Center website.
Read and sign up for the Brennan Center’s new voting newsletter — the most comprehensive digest of the latest news affecting voting.
Supreme Court Reaffirms Citizens United
The Supreme Court struck down an 100-year-old Montana law prohibiting corporate election spending on Monday, reaffirming its earlier ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. The Court did not allow for a full briefing or argument in the case. “By not taking this case, the Court missed a critical opportunity to rein in some of the worst excesses of Citizens United, and other rulings, that created this super PAC mess,” Adam Skaggs said in a recent statement. In May, the Brennan Center filed an amicus brief in the case, arguing that the court’s earlier ruling in Citizens United is untenable in light of the dominant role that super PACs and other outside groups now play in elections. Montana’s high court had upheld its state law despite an apparent conflict with the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United because of the state’s history of corruption. Click here to read the Brennan Center's amicus brief.
Also on Monday, the Supreme Court blocked most parts of Arizona’s controversial SB-1070 immigration law, but allowed for the provision requiring law enforcement officers to ask about the immigration status of people they stop or arrest. Brennan Center President Michael Waldman appeared on MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner to speak about how the ruling could pressure federal lawmakers to take action on immigration reform.
Religious Practice Not "Radicalization," Brennan Center Tells House
Last week, the House Homeland Security Committee, led by Rep. Peter King (R-NY), held a hearing on the “the impact that the committee's prior hearings on ‘radicalization’ had on the American Muslim community.” This was the fifth hearing that the committee had on the topic. Liberty and National Security Program Co-Director Faiza Patel (right) testified that signs of stricter religious practices among Muslims were not signs of a trend toward violent radicalization. Patel said she believed the hearings only served to further alienate American-Muslims, whose cooperation is critical in fighting terror. “The best way to keep our country safe is to use facts to drive counterterrorism policy and using religiosity as an indicator [of potential terrorist activity] doesn’t work,” she said.
- Those arrested for a crack cocaine offense in recent years must be sentenced under revised, less harsh standards, the Supreme Court ruled last Thursday. The decision is a victory for proponents of the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduces the disparities in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine. For almost 25 years, crack sentences were far harsher than those for powder cocaine, even after the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that the inequality established a racial imbalance in prison populations. "This ruling is a crucial step forward in the overall effort to restore fairness to those individuals who were directly impacted by these disparate laws, and to the criminal justice system that has long been, and continues to be, regarded as one that provides justice for some and injustice for others," Austin-Hillery writes.
- Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wrote an op-ed in Politico saying President Obama and congressional Democrats are attempting to “muzzle political speech” by pushing for disclosure of donors to some “independent” groups seeking to influence elections. But “McConnell has it backwards.” Disclosure doesn’t chill political speech, it enhances it. Which is exactly what the Supreme Court supported 8-1 in the Citizens United ruling. Quoting Citizens United’s support for a “corporate finance system that pairs corporate independent expenditures with disclosure,” Backer wrote, “Disclosure ensures that political speakers must stand by their claims and engage in true debate with their opponents. It also allows the public to hold entities to account when they irresponsibly distort the facts for political gain.”
- Legislators in 32 states considered some form of voter ID law this year. Some measures passed, some did not, and some passed, only to face challenges in the courts or by the Justice Department as a possible violation of the Voting Rights Act. Gaskins makes sense of this morass with a handy summary of the latest news on Voter ID laws.
- The Federal Election Commission unanimously approved the use of text messages for campaign contributions. Earley applauds the finding because it could boost the ranks of small donors. “This important — and welcome — development has the potential to inspire huge numbers of Americans to participate in our elections as small donors, spurring broader civic participation and providing a crucial counterweight to the fat-cat donors who currently dominate election spending,” he writes.
Read more blog posts here. To have the blog in your RSS feed, click here.
Past Events
Weiner Tells Tales of the FBI’s Secrets and Lies
At a Brennan Center talk two weeks ago, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tim Weiner (right) discussed his latest book, Enemies: A History of the FBI. He provided an entertaining review of the Bureau’s 104-year history. Weiner’s reporting extends to the present, and he discussed how the FBI, aided by Democrats and Republicans, has been transformed into the nation’s leading counterrorism agency. Moderating the discussion was Brennan Center Chief Counsel Frederick A.O. (‘Fritz’) Schwarz, Jr. To see pictures of Weiner’s appearance, click here.
Upcoming Events
- June 28 – Faiza Patel speaks at a panel discussion “Ten years later: How the South Asian Community is Still Affected by 9/11," at the North American South Asian Bar Association's Annual Convention in Philadelphia.
- July 19 and 20 – The Brennan Center hosts the annual Community-Oriented Defender Network conference on July 19 and 20 at NYU School of Law.
- Diana Kasdan told the Tampa Bay Times that Florida’s attempts to clean voter rolls must be open, transparent and accurate. She told reporter Steve Bousquet that Florida's purge has lacked all of these qualities.
- A Bloomberg story on the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Montana campaign finance case called the decision “a reaffirmation of the 2010 decision that unleashed super-PACs and left federal elections awash in money from big spenders.” In the article, Adam Skaggs described the ruling’s impact: “The decision today says that other states struggling to deal with corrupting political spending are essentially handcuffed.”
- Michael Waldman joined Jose Diaz-Balart to speak with Alex Wagner on MSNBC about how the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the most controversial part of Arizona’s immigration law to stand could bring more pressure for federal immigration reform.
- New York Times reporter Peter Baker wrote about how many lawmakers and activists failed to anticipate legal challenges to the Obama Administration’s health care law. He spoke to Michael Waldman about being one of a few to voice concerns early on that an activist court might strike down the law.
- Nicole Austin-Hillery appeared on Washington Watch with Roland Martin to discuss what African American voters should ask of politicians.
- “Battleground presidential states, states with significantly increasing Hispanic populations, states with histories of very close elections, and states covered all or in part by the Voting Rights Act are more likely to institute voting restrictions,” Wendy Weiser said in a Washington Post story explaining the reasons behind Florida’s voter purge. A ProPublica story about the federal government's decision to sue over the purge cited a 2007 Brennan Center report that found claims of fraud were more often a result of registration errors or other mistakes and not actual fraud.
To read more Brennan Center In The News, click here.
Stay Connected. Stay informed.
- Subscribe to other Brennan Center newsletters on subjects such as fair courts, legal services, and voting rights
- Subscribe to the Brennan Center Blog
- Find all the latest Brennan Center news on our website
- Follow the Brennan Center:
Read the Brennan Center’s Privacy Policy.
