If there were ever a scandal made for headline writers:
The sex scandal that has transfixed Northern Ireland in recent days has a cinematic echo: a 60-year-old Mrs. Robinson who was caught in an affair with a man who was 19 at the time, and is now at the center of a scandal that threatens to bring down the power-sharing government that has steered the province out of 30 years of sectarian bloodshed.
From the New York Times:
… as the administration moves to increase oversight within [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] , the documents show how officials — some still in key positions — used their role as overseers to cover up evidence of mistreatment, deflect scrutiny by the news media or prepare exculpatory public statements after gathering facts that pointed to substandard care or abuse.
As one man lay dying of head injuries suffered in a New Jersey immigration jail in 2007, for example, a spokesman for the federal agency told The Times that he could learn nothing about the case from government authorities. In fact, the records show, the spokesman had alerted those officials to the reporter’s inquiry, and they conferred at length about sending the man back to Africa to avoid embarrassing publicity.
The Supreme Court is poised to strike down restrictions on corporate campaign money that have been in place since Watergate. The case - Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission – appears to hinge on freedom of expression and whether corporations and other non-breathing entities deserve the same first amendment rights as people.
At stake is the way in which democracy is conducted in the United States. Allowing corporations to aim multi-million-dollar negative advertising cannons at any candidates who displease them will fundamentally change the rules of the game.
Bill Moyers did an excellent show on this case back in September, in which he interviewed lawyers for both sides. There is, indeed, a solid legal argument to be made in favor of the first amendment, and free speech veteran Floyd Abrams makes it well to Bill Moyers.
But free speech does come with limits. Trevor Potter, the other side of the coin, argues that corporations are entities designed to care about one thing: Making money. And they’re very good at it, which is fine. Real people, however, care about a lot of things – religion, education, foreign policy, criminal justice. It does not benefit society to give so much license to immensely wealthy, artificial entities whose interests are by definition so narrow.
Apparently the case had been brought on some rather narrow grounds, but last year the Supremes sent it back for re-argument, which, as I understand it, is a good indication that they’re about to drop some sort of constitutional bombshell. Whatever happens, the New York Times reports that a combination of court rulings and FEC gridlock mean that campaign finance restrictions have already been worn down to a nub.
Get ready for a fun election year.