Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

The Campaign-Finance Transparency Canard … In All Its Orwellian Splendor

For the reasons explained above, we now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. — Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Jan. 21, 2010 I should have foreseen it on Monday.  That […]

Mike Huckabee points the way to nullifying Citizens United and McCutcheon v. FEC: Enforcing the enabling-legislation requirement!

Unlike in Wisconsin, same-sex marriage prohibitions in South Carolina and Wyoming weren’t stricken directly, but rather as a consequence of circuit court rulings against bans in nearby states. And Republicans there are intent on dragging their heels. Rather than accepting defeat, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Wyoming Governor Matt Mead both plan to enforce their state SSM bans […]

Ted Olson Wants Congress to Bar the Koch Brothers’ Contributions to Incumbents. I Say: Good Idea!

Post updated below. —- Forty-six Senate Democrats have concluded that the First Amendment is an impediment to re-election that a little tinkering can cure. They are proposing a constitutional amendment that would give Congress and state legislatures the authority to regulate the degree to which citizens can devote their resources to advocating the election or […]

Libertarian? Or Fascist-Light?

The shooting death by police of Ferguson, MO teenager Michael Brown, and what has happened in the aftermath, has been blanketing the news for the past few days. It’s a story about race, but it’s also become a story about the power of the state and how it’s wielded, and against whom. So my question […]

Shaken, Not Stirred: The Supreme neo-Framers (likely) will continue their perversion of the First Amendment speech clause tomorrow.

In an email this morning, Bill H asked me whether I know much about a case called Harris v. Quinn, in which the Supreme Court will announce the likely 5-4 majority’s ruling tomorrow.  I responded: I know LOADS about it, Bill, and wrote about it–and about a bizarre comment by Alito during the argument on the […]

The Secretive Democracy Alliance’s Secret Is Out: Some of its members are elitist, racist and self-serving.

Clarification appended below. —- [David] Brock, a former “right-wing hit-man”-turned-top-big-money-Democratic-operative, is part of a behind-the-scenes campaign to convince donors it’s OK to attack the Koch brothers for spending millions of dollars while doing the exact same thing for the left. “You’re not in this room today trying to figure out how to rig the game […]

Chris Cillizza Misses the Point. (The most important point, anyway.)

Anecdotal evidence, the basis of so much journalism prior to the rise of the data movement and still, to my mind, over-relied upon — is just that: anecdotal. Roughly 65,000 people voted in the Cantor-Brat primary; Brat won by more than 7,200 votes. Assuming that what a non-scientific sample  of 1, 10 or even 100 […]

David Brat, et al. v. John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, the Koch Brothers, the Chamber of Commerce, et al.

Uh-oh, hedge fund managers and Goldman Sachs partners.  Obviously, few of you are evangelical Christians.  So this guy, who wants good markets, has his sights set on you.  But, luckily not on that carried-interest tax-benefit thing y’all get to use, praise the Lord. So maybe you hedge-fund types can skip church again this Sunday, after […]

Finally … a growing public awareness and concern about the ‘attitudinal model’ of Supreme Court votes. [Expanded repost]

Correction appended below. —- Scott Lemieux weighs in at The Week, writing that, although “Supreme Court voting is too complex to be explained by any single factor,” the “attitudinal model” – which posits that “Supreme Court votes are explained by what judges consider desirable policy” – “still contains a good deal of truth.” — Amy […]

A Wisconsin federal judge today struck down as unconstitutional that state’s voter-ID law, ruling that the appearance of voter fraud, just like the appearance of political corruption, can’t justify impeding the First Amendment right to vote.

In a close and insightful  reading of Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion in McCutcheon, reproduced here with his permission from the election law listserv, Marty Lederman has called attention to this first paragraph: “There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders. Citizens can exercise that […]