Pillars at SCOTUS via David Paul Ohmer.

The full transcript from yesterday’s Citizens United arguments has been released by SCOTUS.  SCOTUSblog has links to both the transcript and the tape of oral argument, made available from PBS Newshour.

Depending on the outcome of the case, there could be a reversal of laws which sought to balance speech rights against a compelling interest to prevent public corruption that go all the way back to Taft-Hartley and beyond.

Nina Totenberg hit the nugget of the day squarely in her NPR reporting: "When Olson argued that Congress must have a compelling reason to limit corporate speech, Justice Stephen Breyer said the compelling argument is that "people think representatives are being bought."

Lyle Denniston has some excellent analysis as well, including:

Kennedy was less aggressive in his questioning, but openly voiced concern that government arguments for leaving intact the two precedents against corporate political spending would undercut the Court’s 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo, finding constitutional free speech rights in political spending by all sources, corporations included. And he said those precedents meant that corporations would be “silenced” when they had contributions to make to public policy by speaking out during campaigns.

The core problem with those prior rulings, Kennedy said, was that they “chill expression” based on the speaker. “There is no place where an ongoing chill is more dangerous than in the election context,” he commented.

As in every case the last few years that has had a close divide, satisfying Kennedy’s concerns will likely be the path to the majority.

Reading through the transcript, several things jumped out at me including the gulf between core beliefs of the Justices, and the weighing of the public’s interest in curbing corruption versus the corporate interests. It’s fascinating stuff.

See if you can guess which justices said each of the following from the SCOTUS bench: (more…)

Pile o’ moolah via AMagill.

The Citizens United case will be re-argued today before SCOTUS.  As Robert Barnes put it, this is yet another test of stare decisis in a period where that hallowed doctrine has been repeatedly tested since Justice Roberts took the helm.

And, more precisely, it "raises new ones about the boldness of a court that has moved to the right with the addition of Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr."

The case itself is fascinating on a theoretical level, pitting individual rights, free speech and corporate definitions against one another. When you begin to mix in the real world implications of potential decision on this?

It gets even more interesting:

There are two other layers of disagreement in that background. One is over whether it makes constitutional sense to treat the spending of money as “speech,” and the spending of money on election campaigns as “political speech.” But that is a disagreement outside the Court; it is clear that the Court regards such spending to be speech that has at least some protection under the First Amendment. The Citizens United case may determine how much.

And the other layer of disagreement is whether corporations are entitled to some of the same protection, under the Constitution, as real people: in other words, should they be treated as “persons” who actually have constitutional rights? Once again, that appears not to be open to doubt within the Court. The origins of the notion that corporations are “persons” with constitutional rights are somewhat obscure (often traced, perhaps erroneously, to an 1886 Supreme Court decision, in Santa Clara County v. Union Pacific Railroad), but the Court does not question that they are persons in a legal sense. The coming decision in Citizens United will accept that as a premise for whatever rights corporations are found to have as political financiers.

Doug Kendall of CAC penned an op-ed for the LATimes on why there ought to be some debate:

The line between corporations and individuals when it comes to constitutional protections is as old as the United States. The framers wrote the Constitution to protect citizens and the people and never once used the word "corporations."

Early Supreme Court rulings embraced this distinction, holding that the legal rights of a corporation derive from its corporate charter, not the Constitution. . . .

The court’s ruling in Austin, in other words, is fully consistent with the Constitution’s text and history. If conservative justices on the Supreme Court overrule Austin, they will be guilty not only of unleashing corporate influence on elections — in blatant disregard of the will of Congress and of the American people — but of violating their own purported allegiance to upholding our founding document.

The Austin case is Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a seminal case which prohibited corporate funds from being directly used to support state candidates.

As an interesting historical note, Justices Kennedy and Scalia joined the dissent against Thurgood Marshall’s majority opinion in Austin. You have to wonder where Kennedy’s leaning at this point, don’t you? (more…)

The stay is requested pending their appeal of that order to the SCOTUS. SCOTUSblog has helpfully posted the full brief in PDF form.

A response brief from DOJ is due today, and I’m hoping for something better than "the courts can’t compel us to release anyone, thank you very much." But I am, sadly, not holding my breath on that one.

Why?  Because of what the US government may or may not continue to do:

At issue in the case are several orders issued by District Court judges, temporarily limiting the government’s power to transfer individuals out of Guantanamo. The detainees’ lawyers sought those limits to give them a chance to challenge any possible transfer to another country where the prisoners were likely to be tortured, or detained further. Some of the orders require a 30-day notice before a detainee could be sent elsewhere. (more…)

Judge Sonia Sotomayor was approved as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The final Senate vote tally was 68 votes for her nomination, 31 votes against.

The one Senator not voting was Sen. Kennedy, who expressed support for her nomination but was not present today in DC for the vote due to his illness.

The vote on Sonia Sotomayor’s SCOTUS nomination is likely to come at 3 pm ET today. Would that other legal positions were also a priority in the Senate. This is what happens when you fail to make the rule of law a priority: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), speaking at the start of a committee meeting, expressed frustration that the Senate has not confirmed any nominees to the federal judiciary this year. In all, he said, there are 17 nominations that the Judiciary Committee has sent to the full Senate and that are still awaiting confirmation.

The Senate finally got to some debate on the Sotomayor SCOTUS nomination late yesterday, after an interminable wrangle on the agriculture bill. The Senate is expected to gavel back into session at 9:30 am ET this morning.

After morning business concludes, the SCOTUS debate should resume with a vote likely sometime late today or early tomorrow.

C-Span has been keeping a handy, alphabetized tally of Senator’s public statements on voting

The full Senate will take up debate on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the SCOTUS, with a vote likely sooner rather than later since a filibuster or other lengthy opposition strategy is not expected.

It’s almost as though the GOP wants to rush the vote off the floor. Too bad Sen.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Sotomayor SCOTUS nomination this morning, in a vote of 13 to 6.

This from Sen. Leahy’s speech covers the Democratic perspective for the most part: In her 17 years on the bench there is not one example, let alone a pattern, of her ruling based on bias or prejudice or sympathy.