Citizens United Case

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On January 21, 2010 the Supreme Court reached a decision that overruled two precedents and opened the door for corporate interests to take stock in Washington. The ruling in the case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, will likely lead to a downward spiral of corruption and corporate interests in Washington. The court ruled that the right of free speech in advertising a political movie was protected under the first amendment. The case brought up questions of rights for corporations, as well as issues over corporate involvement in government. In the end, the final decision fell on the Supreme Court, and they fulfilled their responsibility to protect the Constitution. In January of 2008 Citizens United, a nonprofit, conservative …show more content…
Citizen’s United’s documentary would air within this 30 day period before the primary election. Citizens United’s first argument that Hillary was not an “electioneering communication” because it was not “publicly distributed” was overruled by the precedent put down in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life Inc. that said the communication can only not be classified as such if it is beyond “reasonable interpretation”. Citizens United argued that it should be allowed to air the video via on-demand because there was a “lower risk of distorting the political process” through this delivery method than advertisements. Even with this, their argument was overshadowed by the fact that they aired a television advertisement that directly criticized Hillary Clinton while advertising the movie, and the court ruled that the ad was not beyond reasonable interpretation. Citizens United’s only other argument left was the right of free speech. They argued that their First Amendment right to free speech should be protected under the