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Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Defends Citizens United — But Admits ‘Life Does Not Begin at Incorporation’ Slogan Is Pretty Good

Nov. 17, 2012 1:54pm Madeleine Morgenstern

Justice Samuel Alito Defends Citizens United, Admits Life Does Not Begin at Incorporation Slogan Is Pretty Good

Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito speaks at Roger Williams University Law School in Bristol, R.I. on Sept. 14, 2012. (AP File Photo)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is defending the court’s 2010 decision in the Citizens United case that helped fuel hundreds of millions of dollars of spending by independent groups in the just-concluded campaign season.

Alito told roughly 1,500 people at a Federalist Society dinner this week that the First Amendment protects political speech, whether from an individual or a corporation. His comments to the overwhelmingly conservative and Republican crowd were part of his broader analysis of arguments put forth by the Obama administration in recent years that Alito said would curtail individual freedoms in favor of stronger federal power.

He said opponents of the 5-4 decision have conducted an effective, but misleading, public relations campaign by stressing that the court extended free speech rights to corporations.

He even praised opponents’ pithy cleverness, noting such bumper stickers as “Life Does Not Begin at Incorporation.”

But Alito rattled off the names of the nation’s leading newspapers and television networks, all owned by corporations and possessing acknowledged rights to print and say what they wish about politics and government.

“The question is whether speech that goes to the very heart of government should be limited to certain preferred corporations; namely, media corporations,” he said. “Surely the idea that the First Amendment protects only certain privileged voices should be disturbing to anybody who believes in free speech.”

It was not the first time Alito has taken on critics of the outcome in the Citizens United case. At President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address soon after the court’s ruling in January 2010, the president said the court “reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.”

Alito, sitting with five other justices, was seen to mouth, “Not true.”

The justice in his speech Thursday also briefly dealt with high court cases involving religion, private property, surveillance, immigration and health care. In the latter case, of course, Alito was among four justices who dissented from the ruling that upheld Obama’s health care overhaul.

But he noted that, even in the health care ruling, the court rejected administration arguments in favor of congressional power at the expense of the states and individuals.

Taken together, Alito said, the views put forth by the government begin to suggest a vision of society “in which the federal government towers over people.” He noted that in several cases, not a single justice endorsed the administration’s arguments.

He also humorously recounted his experience at Yale Law School in the early 1970s when he was a student of constitutional law professor Charles Reich, who by then was more interested in American counterculture than the law.

He quoted from Reich’s bestselling “The Greening of America,” in which the author painted a frightening picture of a disintegrating society and called the era a “moment of utmost sterility, darkest night, most extreme peril.”

Here, Alito paused and, to the delight of a crowd dismayed by Obama’s re-election, added, “So our current situation is nothing new.”

—

Conservative justices routinely speak at Federalist Society gatherings, including the yearly fall meeting in Washington.

Thursday’s black-tie dinner at a Washington hotel cost $175 a plate, or for $550 a participant could attend the dinner and three days of speeches and panel discussions featuring a host of federal judges, conservative and liberal legal scholars and leading Supreme Court lawyers.

Some critics have said the justices are crossing an ethical line when they allow their names to be used by the group to help sell tickets to the event. Alliance for Justice, a not-for-profit group that advocates for liberal court nominees, said Alito showed “insensitivity to the need for a justice’s ethical behavior to be above reproach” by doing just that.

Ethics guidelines for federal judges other than Supreme Court justices say judges should steer clear of fundraising efforts and not allow the prestige of their office to be used to drum up ticket sales.

Federalist Society president and chief executive officer Eugene Meyer said the critics have their facts wrong.

“This annual event is not a fundraiser. We have not hoped to raise funds from it, and, in fact, we lose a little money on every meal we serve,” Meyer said.

—

While Alito was talking about the counterculture, other justices were dipping into pop culture.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor made her second appearance on “Sesame Street,” joining muppet Abby Cadabby to talk about the word “career.”

Abby, the 3-year-old daughter of the Fairy Godmother, said she hoped to be a princess.

“Pretending to be a princess is fun, but it is definitely not a career,” Sotomayor said.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg found herself in an unusual place for high court justices, among Glamour magazine’s Women of the Year. “The judiciary is not a profession that ranks very high among the glamorously attired,” she told the audience as the magazine honored the women at Carnegie Hall in New York. Ginsburg also noted that she might have been the second woman to join the high court after Sandra Day O’Connor, but she was the first honored by Glamour.

Among the other honorees was Lena Dunham, creator of the HBO hit series “Girls.” As it happens, Dunham made another annual list that also included a Supreme Court justice.

Dunham and Chief Justice John Roberts (an unlikely pair, no?) are members of Esquire magazine’s 2012 roster of Americans of the Year.

Roberts was recognized for his vote to uphold the health care law. The magazine said the outcome allowed Roberts to “preserve the court’s institutional integrity” by joining with the four liberal justices and avoiding a wholly partisan and ideological split.

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Comments (30)

jessieH
Posted on November 18, 2012 at 10:41am
He’s wrong. Freedom of speech is meant for individuals, no corporations.

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- Libertarian
  Posted on November 18, 2012 at 5:33pm
  You are wrong. A corporation is nothing more than a group of individuals. You can call it a group of people, union, organization, foundation, gang, crowd, guild, mob ect… Would you prohibit a married man and a women from combining their resources for a political candidate? Then you are on the side of tyrants and not free people.
  
  Regulators are not on the side of free people.
  
  Report this comment
- SanRemo1959
  Posted on November 19, 2012 at 12:55pm
  No, YOU’RE wrong Libertarian. A PERSON is a person. A corporation is not a person, obviously. A corporation is an entity created by a person for the sole purpose of making money. It deserves no rights. I has no rights. It’s existence is granted and controlled by laws drawn up in congress. Certain privileges can be and are granted to corporations. But rights? They have no rights. Anyone who says a corporation a person is an idiot or a corporate shill or more likely, both.
  
  Report this comment
All Pro
Posted on November 18, 2012 at 6:59am
It’s sad when the entire country has been so dumbed down regarding the founders views on incorporation that even a supreme court judge doesn’t understand it or is just plain lying. Permanent incorporation was reserved for cities, states, municipalities. Private corporate charters where temporary and had to be reviewed and renewed each year with a maximum life of 2 years. After that the corp had to be dissolved and reformed. The country was over thrown by progressives like Rockefeller and Morgan with a lo of help from Wilson. How many people know that wages, a paycheck was never defined as income? How many people know that there is no requirement for any US citizen to pay a single penny in the form of federal payroll tax? Income was defined by the SCOTUS and the founders as profits earned on money invested. Today we call that the capital gains tax. Only 2 candidates understood this and they both had put out plans to fix what’s really wrong with the entire country. Herman Cain and Ron Paul. Now the best anyone can hope for is that we win the revolution and restore the republic. In the mean time anyone that thinks it’s fair that wage earners pay from 20-40% of their paycheck to the feds while the rich that earn profits pay 11% to the feds….you are a BIG part of the problem. The country was not built on the capitalist system. It was built on the industrialist system. Henry Ford was an industrialist. John Rockefeller was a capitalist. A corporation is a legal doc not a perso

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- idarusskie
  Posted on November 18, 2012 at 9:05am
  A union is also just an agreement. a union is an a person.
  
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- Libertarian
  Posted on November 18, 2012 at 5:48pm
  Henry Ford in order to better compete made the 8 hour work day. Unions take credit for this but it was in fact “capitalism” or quasi-capitalism that gave these major industries the incentive to better compete. Capitalism and a fed up working class was the cause for better working conditions.
  
  I believe that a free people should be allowed to combine their money to express like-minded political expression. If free speech is attached to individuals, it can’t be prevented simply because like-minded individuals assemble.
  
  Read about the Sons of Liberty or different factions in the the era. The founders absolutely believed in the right to assemble and express political speech. Nothing is new under the sun, it is just expressed through TV and radio Ads these days.
  
  The right to assemble is in the 1st amendment.
  
  Report this comment
Owl Works
Posted on November 18, 2012 at 6:44am
Life does not begin at legislation either.

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rickc34
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 11:45pm
Roberts was paid off. Any person that can be bought has no real worth.

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- JACKTHETOAD
  Posted on November 18, 2012 at 5:36am
  He’s somewhere right now with Kagan and Sotomayora in a threesome. I dare you to get THAT mental picture outta your heads. Have a nice day.
  
  Report this comment
christos
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 6:34pm
Who exactly is the Fed?Is it the Bilderberg group,is it the Catholic Church,are these the Illuminati? The common thread is Catholic,,,does anyone think Britain would give up taxing everyone?

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wordsofwisdom
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 5:59pm
The thing that amazes me about the justices is their piety to their court. I am told here that Roberts joined with the 4 libs for a decision that is the biggest ever so he could preserve the court’s integrity! Tell me Mr. Roberts, Where is the integrity in doing that? Don’t bother there isn’t any! Thanks for your concern about the rest of us & how Obamacare will destroy the best medical system in the world. But hey, you saved the court right! We are in a fragile time & the best they can offer is excuses. This is how the devil deceives us “The Devils Song” http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_10789987
listen to understand his ways.

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WEBWITHDEB
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 4:08pm
I beg to differ with the justice. Life does begin at incorporation. One just has to realize what is being incorporated (def. merged, formed).

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- henryKnox
  Posted on November 18, 2012 at 11:04am
  This was something that his opponents were saying, not something that he agreed with.
  
  Report this comment
Gourdy
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 3:13pm
Does anyone see the irony of a sitting Supreme Court justice advocating a law that allows nearly unlimited financial contributions to elections all while doing so at the Federalist Society, whose mantra is “judicial restraint,” i.e., against activist judges?

At least it sounds like he got a nice meal out of it.

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- DadRocked
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 3:44pm
  But over this past summer we heard personal and political views from the likes of Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Scalia.
  
  Report this comment
- DadRocked
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 3:50pm
  A few years back, Ginsberg had said, “Frankly I had thought that at the time [Roe v. Wade] was decided,” Ginsburg told her interviewer, Emily Bazelon, “there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations tat we don’t want to have too many of.”
  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/227883/ruth-bader-ginsburg-and-question-eugenics/jonah-goldberg
  
  Report this comment
grayling646
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 2:50pm
“This annual event is not a fundraiser. We have not hoped to raise funds from it, and, in fact, we lose a little money on every meal we serve,” Meyer said.

At $175 a plate everything must be gold plated.

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- Gourdy
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 3:18pm
  I found that funny too. It makes me wonder how much my local high school loses every year on its $10 pancake breakfast fundraiser.
  
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DougHuffman
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 2:37pm
Hmmpf, the political ‘potatoes’ are much more efficacious dumbing than the chewing gum enlightening!

Good people ought to be armed as they will, with wits and Guns and the Truth. Hope4Change Damn progs

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Gourdy
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 2:35pm
Considering the millions spent by Sheldon Adelson and the Koch boys, there seems to be a limit to what influence corporate money can buy. That is not, of course, to say that the millions spent by Obama-friendly corps were affective either.

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- DadRocked
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 2:54pm
  But it is still their monies to spend as they see fit.
  
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- Gourdy
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 3:28pm
  Dadrocked, I agree when people like Koch, Adelson, or Soros are the sources, but there was way too much secret money in this election from these shell corporations with vague sounding names. And that was happening on both the left and right.
  
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- DadRocked
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 3:40pm
  No disagreement here… Quite a bit of it was untrackable that came from outside the states…
  
  Report this comment
- charles116
  Posted on November 18, 2012 at 1:51am
  You can gift wrap a turd – it’s still a turd.
  
  Report this comment
soybomb315_II
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 2:11pm
if it werent for McCain’s stupid campaign finance law, this would have never been an issue

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Chrison
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 2:05pm
Incorproation???

The Blaze’s spell checker must have the day off!

:)

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- blackyb
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 2:13pm
  They must be using mine. lol.
  
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- Chrison
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 2:14pm
  They must have called-in the spell checker… it’s been fixed. LOL!
  
  Anyway…
  
  I don’t know how you do it without impinging on freedom of speech, but there *really* needs to be something done to stop this madness of spending a billion dollars on election campaigns. America started as a country of “We the People” but has become a country of “We the special interest groups.” One reason why Americans are losing faith in their government is because they’re rapidly losing their voice! The “little guy” has now been drowned-out by the super PACs, and the reigns of power are now won by whomever dumps the most money into negative advertising.
  
  I *really* don’t think this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind!
  
  Report this comment
- soybomb315_II
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 2:27pm
  the money in politics is still small potatoes. The bubble gum industry is bigger than what the political season spends
  
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- DadRocked
  Posted on November 17, 2012 at 3:05pm
  Chrison – No but we need to remember that the constitution is a marvel of BREVITY and CLARITY. It was, however, written in the 1770s, as many of the ideas, concepts, words, phrases, and euphemisms seem odd to us today.
  
  Report this comment

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