Citizen United Oral Argument Excerpts

Ted Olson starts like this:

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court: Participation in the political process is the First Amendment's most fundamental guarantee.

Yet that freedom is being smothered by one of the most complicated, expensive, and incomprehensible regulatory regimes ever invented by the administrative state. 

In the case that you consider today, it is a felony for a small, nonprofit corporation to offer interested viewers a 90-minute political documentary about a candidate for the nation's highest office that General Electric, National Public Radio, or George Soros may freely broadcast.

 Here is another remarkable excerpt:

Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

That's pretty incredible.

You think that if -- if a book was published, a campaign biography that was the functional equivalent of express advocacy, that could be banned?

Malcolm L. Stewart

--I'm not saying it could be banned.

I'm saying that Congress could prohibit the use of corporate treasury funds and could require a corporation to publish it using its PAC. 

 

And this one:

Antonin Scalia

Mr. Stewart, do you think that there's a possibility that the First Amendment interest is greater when what the government is trying to stifle is not just a speaker who wants to say something but also a hearer who wants to hear what the speaker has to say?

I mean, what's somewhat different about this case is that, unlike over-the-air television, you have a situation where you only get this -- this message would only air -- if somebody elects to hear it.

So you really have two interested people, the speaker and the listener who wants to -- who wants to get this.

Isn't that a somewhat heightened First Amendment interest than just over-the-air broadcasting of advertising which probably most listeners don't want to hear?