2. Which Civil War amendment played a key role in corporate law in the late nineteenth century? 3. This report ends with the comment that the Constitution, through Citizens United, protects both speech and the speaker. Can we separate the two? If so, how? If not, why? Source 5 “Debating ‘Citizens United’” The Nation Magazine January 13, 2011 “Remember the First Amendment?” By Floyd Abrams When the Citizens United decision was released, many commentators treated it as a desecration. People who would enthusiastically defend the free speech rights of Nazis, pornographers and distributors of videos of animals being tortured or killed were appalled that corporations and unions should be permitted to weigh in on who should be elected president. That the opinion was based on the First Amendment seemed only to add to their sense of insult. Some dealt with that uncomfortable reality by simply ignoring what the opinion said.… Citizens United concluded that the First Amendment bars Congress from criminalizing independent expenditures by corporations and unions supporting or condemning candidates for federal office.… The opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy in Citizens United was written in that spirit. It was rooted in two well-established legal propositions. The first was that political speech, especially political speech about whom to vote for or against, is at the core of the First Amendment.… The second prong of Justice Kennedy’s opinion addressed the issue (much discussed in this magazine and elsewhere) of whether the fact that Citizens United was a corporation could deprive it of the right that individuals have long held to support or oppose candidates by making independent expenditures. In concluding that the corporate status of an entity could not negate this right, Justice Kennedy cited twenty-five cases of the Court in which corporations had received full First Amendment protection. Many of them involved powerful newspapers owned by large corporations… Source: The Nation, Questions 1. What is Abrams’s main argument in favor of the Citizen United decision? 2. What does Abrams identify as the two “well-established legal propositions” behind Justice Kennedy’s opinion in Citizen’s United? Source 6
2. Which Civil War amendment played a key role in corporate law in the late nineteenth century? 3. This report ends with the comment that the Constitution, through Citizens United, protects both speech and the speaker. Can we separate the two? If so, how? If not, why? Source 5 “Debating ‘Citizens United’” The Nation Magazine January 13, 2011 “Remember the First Amendment?” By Floyd Abrams When the Citizens United decision was released, many commentators treated it as a desecration. People who would enthusiastically defend the free speech rights of Nazis, pornographers and distributors of videos of animals being tortured or killed were appalled that corporations and unions should be permitted to weigh in on who should be elected president. That the opinion was based on the First Amendment seemed only to add to their sense of insult. Some dealt with that uncomfortable reality by simply ignoring what the opinion said.… Citizens United concluded that the First Amendment bars Congress from criminalizing independent expenditures by corporations and unions supporting or condemning candidates for federal office.… The opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy in Citizens United was written in that spirit. It was rooted in two well-established legal propositions. The first was that political speech, especially political speech about whom to vote for or against, is at the core of the First Amendment.… The second prong of Justice Kennedy’s opinion addressed the issue (much discussed in this magazine and elsewhere) of whether the fact that Citizens United was a corporation could deprive it of the right that individuals have long held to support or oppose candidates by making independent expenditures. In concluding that the corporate status of an entity could not negate this right, Justice Kennedy cited twenty-five cases of the Court in which corporations had received full First Amendment protection. Many of them involved powerful newspapers owned by large corporations… Source: The Nation, Questions 1. What is Abrams’s main argument in favor of the Citizen United decision? 2. What does Abrams identify as the two “well-established legal propositions” behind Justice Kennedy’s opinion in Citizen’s United? Source 6
12th-Grade-Source-Set_Govt2.docx