Title:
What 'Citizens United' Does for US Companies, Unions
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
Laws in the United States and other countries treat
a corporation like a person. We talked last week
about how this idea developed a long time ago.
In the United States, the Constitution protects
freedom of speech. The Supreme Court has recognized
that this is also true for corporations. But there
was still a question about whether corporations
could have the same freedom of political speech as
real people do.
During the two thousand eight presidential campaign,
a nonprofit corporation released a film critical of
Hillary Clinton. The group, Citizens United, wanted
to make "Hillary: The Movie" available on cable TV.
But it did not want to violate a limit on so-called
electioneering communication by corporations and
unions within thirty days of a primary election.
Citizens United took the Federal Election Commission
to court to fight the law.
In January of this year, the Supreme Court, by the
narrowest majority, voted five to four to end the
ban. The ruling clears the way for corporations and
unions to use their own money to support the
election or defeat of a candidate. However, they are
still barred from directly giving money to
candidates. And the court did not consider the
question of laws designed to prevent foreign
influence in the political process.
Since the nineteen forties, the traditional place
for political speech by American unions and
companies has been through political action
committees. William Van Alstyne is a professor at
the William and Mary Law School in Virginia.
Now, says Professor Van Alstyne, the decision in
Citizens United raises new issues. For example, the
court will have to rule on whether companies with
majority foreign ownership can enjoy the same
expanded rights of political speech.
President Obama denounced the ruling in his State of
the Union speech to Congress in January. In March,
Chief Justice John Roberts told law students that
"anybody can criticize the Supreme Court." But, in
answer to a question, he said the setting was "very
troubling." Six of the nine justices, including the
chief justice, were sitting right in front of the
president.
And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report.
For more business news, go to our Web site,
voaspecialenglish.com. You can also comment on our
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personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
