Law Commons^™

The Private Abridgment Of Free Speech, Erin L. Miller

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article challenges the orthodoxy that First Amendment speech rights can bind only the state. I argue that the primary justification for the freedom of speech is to protect fundamental interests like autonomy, democracy, and knowledge from the kind of extraordinary power over speech available to the state. If so, this justification applies with nearly equal force to any private agents with power over speech rivaling that of the state. Such a class of private agents, which I call quasi-state agents, turns out to be a live possibility once we recognize that state power is more limited than it seems …

Democracy, Deference, And Compromise: Understanding And Reforming Campaign Finance Jurisprudence, Scott P. Bloomberg

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In Citizens United, the Supreme Court interpreted the government’s interest in preventing corruption as being limited to preventing quid pro quo— cash-for-votes—corruption. This narrow interpretation drastically circumscribed legislatures’ abilities to regulate the financing of elections, in turn prompting scholars to propose a number of reforms for broadening the government interest in campaign finance cases. These reforms include urging the Court to recognize a new government interest such as political equality, to adopt a broader understanding of corruption, and to be more deferential to legislatures in defining corruption.

Building upon that body of scholarship, this Article begins with a descriptive …

Speech Inequality After Janus V. Afscme, Charlotte Garden

Indiana Law Journal

This Article explores the growing divide between the Roberts Court’s treatment of the free speech rights of wealthy individuals and corporations in campaign finance cases as compared to its treatment of the rights of public-sector labor unions and their members. First, it highlights some internal contradictions in the Janus Court’s analysis. Then, it discusses the growing—yet mostly ignored—divergence in the Court’s treatment of corporate and labor speakers with respect to the use of market influence to achieve political influence.

The Article has two Parts. In Part I, I explain how the Court reached its decision in Janus before critiquing the …

Burwell V. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.: Creating Power For Corporations At The Cost Of Changing Women’S Lives, Tara Zabehi

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

Politics At Work After Citizens United, Ruben J. Garcia

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

There are seismic changes going on in the political system. The United States Supreme Court has constitutionalized the concentration of political power in the “one percent” in several recent decisions, including Citizens United v. FEC. At the same time, unions are representing a shrinking share of the workforce, and their political power is also being diminished. In order for unions to recalibrate the balance of political power at all, they must collaborate with grassroots community groups, as they have done in several recent campaigns. There are, however, various legal structures that make coordination between unions and nonunion groups difficult, …

The First Amendment Case For Corporate Religious Rights, John D. Moore

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Fighting Foreign-Corporate Political Access: Applying Corporate Veil-Piercing Doctrine To Domestic-Subsidiary Contributions, Ryan Rott

Michigan Law Review

Campaign finance regulations limit speech. The laws preclude foreign nationals, including foreign corporations, from participating in U.S. politics via campaign contributions. The unusual characteristics of corporations, however, may allow foreign corporations to exploit a loophole in the regulatory regime. A foreign corporation may contribute to political campaigns by acquiring a domestic subsidiary and dominating it. This Note addresses how these unusual corporate behaviors enable foreign corporations to illegally corrupt the political process. This Note concludes that to close the loophole without violating the free speech rights of domestic subsidiaries, Congress should enact legislation which would apply corporate veil-piercing theory to …

First Amendment Decisions From The October 2006 Term, Erwin Chemerinsky, Marci A. Hamilton

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Elevation Of Corporate Free Speech Rights Affects Legality Of Network Neutrality, Barbara A. Cherry

Federal Communications Law Journal

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court overruled a century of precedent to hold that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons with regard to political speech. This Article describes how the Court's decision is a radical departure from history that mirrors the FCC's flawed analysis in its classification of broadband Internet access services as an information service with no separable telecommunications component subject to common carriage regulation. Overall, the combinatorial effect of Citizens United and the FCC's classification of broadband access service as an information service is to elevate the constitutional free speech …

Citizens United And The Illusion Of Coherence, Richard L. Hasen

Michigan Law Review

The self-congratulatory tone of the majority and concurring opinions in last term's controversial Supreme Court blockbuster, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, extended beyond the trumpeting of an absolutist vision of the First Amendment that allows corporations to spend unlimited sums independently to support or oppose candidates for office. The triumphalism extended to the majority's view that it had imposed coherence on the unwieldy body of campaign finance jurisprudence by excising an "outlier" 1990 opinion, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which had upheld such corporate limits, and parts of a 2003 opinion, McConnell v. FEC, extending Austin to unions …

Citizens United And The Threat To The Regulatory State, Tamara R. Piety

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Although Citizens United has been roundly criticized for its potential effect on elections and its display of judicial immodesty (or "activism"), the effect of the case which may be both most profound and perhaps most pernicious is its effect on the commercial speech doctrine. This is an aspect of the case which has been largely overlooked. Most people seem to be unaware of any connection between election law and the commercial speech doctrine-except, that is, those who have been working long and hard to accomplish the change it foreshadows. They are keenly aware of its implications.

Introduction: The Yahoo! Case And Conflict Of Laws In The Cyberage, Mathias Reimann

Michigan Journal of International Law

Three years ago, two French public interest groups, La Ligue Contre le Racisme et L'Antisemitisme (LICRA) and LUnion des Etudiants Juifs De France (UEJF), sued Yahoo! Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered near Santa Barbara, California, in the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris. The undisputed facts underlying the complaint were that: Yahoo! Inc. operated, inter alia, an auction website on which various Nazi memorabilia (such as flags, stamps, and military souvenirs) were offered for sale; the respective Yahoo! Inc. website was accessible in France; and the display of the Nazi memorabilia was illegal under French law. The French plaintiffs sought …

Corporate Cybersmear: Employers File John Doe Defamation Lawsuits Seeking The Identity Of Anonymous Employee Internet Posters, Margo E. K. Reder, Christine Neylon O'Brien

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Communications systems are now wide open and fully accessible, with no limits in range, scope or geography. Targeted audiences are accessible with pinpoint accuracy. Messages reach millions of readers with one click. There is a chat room for everyone. Most importantly, there is no limit on content. Therefore, employees can register their dissatisfaction by posting a message in a chat room. Moreover, the identity of the posting employee is not easily discoverable due to anonymous and pseudonymous communications capabilities. The nature of these online messages is qualitatively different from real-world communications. By way of example, newspapers have a responsibility regarding …

Limitations On Corporate Speech: Protection For Shareholders Or Abridgement Of Expression?, Alan J. Meese

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The First Amendment, Burt Neuborne

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Expanding The Scarcity Rationale: The Constitutionality Of Public Access Requirements In Cable Franchise Agreements, Debora L. Osgood

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that public access requirements should be upheld because they are constitutional and because they further the goals of the first amendment. As background for the debate over public access, Part I provides a brief description of cable television's history and regulation and discusses the case law concerning public access requirements. Part II examines the nature of the first amendment interests at stake in public access requirements. Before resolving the question of which interests should be protected, Part III argues that an expanded scarcity rationale should be used to justify cable regulation under the first amendment. Part IV …

Recent Cases, Robert E. Banta, Oby T. Brewer, Iii, Cornelia A. Clark, I. Terry Currie, Douglas W. Ey, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Constitutional Law-First Amendment-School Authorities May Prohibit High School Student's Distribution of Sex Questionnaire to Prevent Possible Psychological Harm to Other Students Robert Edward Banta

Plaintiff, editor of a high school publication,' brought suit in federal court seeking an order compelling defendant school officials to allow the student publication to distribute a sex questionnaire,to students in the high school and to publish the results. Plaintiff claimed that defendants had not shown that the planned distribution would disrupt school activities and that, therefore, defendants'prohibition of the questionnaire violated 42 U.S.C. § 19831 and the first and fourteenth amendments. Pointing to potential psychological …