Pros And Cons Of Citizens United Vs Fec

On July 9, 1868, the Fourteenth amendment was formally introduced to the Constitution and granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” These words have as an ideal purpose that all levels of the federal government must operate within the law and provide fair conditions for all people. As a result, the states had a obligation to the public. Through the Fourteenth amendment, states were forbidden from denying any person “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” or to “deny any person within jurisdiction the equal protection of laws.” By directly mentioning the role of the states, the Fourteenth amendment also expanded civil rights to African American slaves who had been emancipated after the American Civil War.

Campaign spending is out of control. This year alone PACs, controlled by companies, labor unions, and issue groups, had made a political expenditure of 1.7 billion dollars (OpenSecrets.org). Majority of the money was spent independently on political activities, such as advertising. For instance 54% of all money spent buy super Pac were on attack ads (Johnson, Dave) . Since these organization can spend unlimited amount of money on advertising they can control mainstream media and in turn can greatly influence the general public to vote for certain

United States brought the issue of placing limits on campaign spending before the Supreme Court for the first time (Jamie, 2014). In its ruling, the Supreme Court stated that Congress did not have the authority to regulate primary elections or political parties and thus, limitations on campaign spending were struck down. Despite the Newberry v. United States ruling, Congress amended the FCPA in 1925 to again include spending limits in federal elections as well as a ban on corporate contributions to federal elections. In 1941, United States v. Classic resulted in the Supreme Court upholding spending limits in federal elections. The Court stated that the constitutional right to vote did extend to primaries (Jamie, 2014).

Roe vs. Wade is the highly publicized Supreme Court ruling that overturned a Texas interpretation of abortion law and made abortion legal in the United States. The Roe v. Wade decision held that a woman, with her doctor, has the right to choose abortion in earlier months of pregnancy without legal restriction, and with restrictions in later months, based on the right to privacy. As a result, all state laws that limited women 's access to abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy were invalidated by this particular case. State laws limiting such access during the second trimester were upheld only when the restrictions were for the purpose of protecting the health of the pregnant woman. Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the greater United States, which was not legal at all in many states and was limited by law in others. Prior to the case it was the state that determined the legality of abortions.

In today’s government, there are two groups that can influence the way people vote for candidates in political races. They are known as a Super Pac and 501c4. Super Pacs are committees that became significant in 2010 after the court decision in the SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission (Super Pacs). A 501c4 is referred as “social welfare” groups. Their primary focus is to promote social welfare causes (Sullivan). These groups are two way candidates and politicians can gain donations for their candidacy. Lately, these two group have caused some controversy in the government, but it is very certain that 501c4s are the most controversial when comparing it to Super Pacs.

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal rights for women. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman. In 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time. The ERA has always been highly controversial regarding the meaning of equality for women. Middle-class women generally were supportive. Those speaking for the working class were strongly opposed, arguing that employed women needed special protections regarding working conditions and hours. In 1972, it passed both houses of Congress and was submitted to the state legislatures for ratification. It seemed headed for quick approval until Phyllis Schlafly mobilized conservative women

America is known by many to be the best countries in the world but there are still many things that stand in the way of the american dream (Stealing From America). One of these things is corporate lobbyist. These people have slowly taken over american democracy with pay to play corruption and giant lobbying teams (The Atlantic). Nowadays unions and protest have been much less successful in stopping the behemoth that is a corporate lobbying team(Secular Talk). Corporation will continue to grow wealth inequality in america if we do nothing about it.

The first amendment guarantees five basic freedoms to the American citizens. These freedoms are of speech, press, petition, assembly and religion. As all the amendments, the first amendment is intended for use in situations with the government. The first amendment was written by James Madison and was sent to the states to be ratified on September 25, 1789 along with the twelve proposals for the bill of rights.. Then it was officially adopted on December 15, 1791.

The Supreme Court priorities from the time period of 1790 to 1865 were establishing the Judiciary Act of 1789, which was instrumental in founding the Federal Court System. The framers believed that establishing a National Judiciary was an urgent and important task. After the installation of Chief Justice John Marshall who “used his dominance to strengthen the court 's position and advance the policies he favored” (Baum 20). However, in the decision of the landmark case of Marbury v. Madison in 1803 was an example of the power he exuded “in which the Court struck down a Federal statute for the first time” (Baum 20). This created some internal conflict between Marshall and President Thomas Jefferson, however Marshall was able to diffuse this with

“Under Justice Roberts’s test, Citizens’ desire to broadcast the film during an election cycle is irrelevant because this desire is a contextual factor that focuses on Citizens’ intent in producing the film” The intent may not have been to sway votes, so there is no reason the speech should be limited, as established here by a Duke Law student, Aaron Harmon. Some may disapprove of these types of contributions to campaigns, but this format helps bring more information to create informed voters. The decision was also very broad. Justice Kennedy, author of the opinion held that “This case cannot be resolved on a narrower ground without chilling political speech, speech that is central to the First Amendment ’s meaning and purpose.”(“CITIZENS UNITED”) Kennedy could have simply said that Citizens could show the film, but it wouldn’t establish much. By broadening the decision, they established a relevant precedent to get rid of unnecessary campaign finance

Net-neutrality is the principle that providers of Internet services enable access to all contents with no prejudice or discrimination against sites or products regardless of the source. In December, the U.S. government repealed the national regulations that prevented “Internet Service Providers from blocking legal content, throttling traffic or prioritizing content on their broadband networks” in favor of a “looser set of requirements that ISPs disclose any blocking or prioritization of their own content.” In summary, the government has decided to change net-neutrality and make it easier to profit from. The government’s want, and subsequent success, to change the strict guidelines by which net-neutrality operated with is supported by the Chairman

The act of influencing legislation in government is called “lobbying”. The right to lobby is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. It states “Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances” (APUS, n.d). Besides, this is considered to be part of the Freedom of Assembly and Petition Clause in the First Amendment. This essay will discuss the impact of lobbyist on legislation in Washington, DC and the amount of dollars spent to influence federal policies.

Hello, and thank you for allowing me to speak to you today as an anti federalist. I will be speaking about why the constitution, in its current form, should not be ratified. I would like to start today with a quote from one of our papers “When a building is to be erected which is intended to stand for ages, the foundation should be firmly laid.” As anti federalists we believe that the way our constitution, the foundation of our nation, is being constructed is incorrect, and primarily only beneficiary for the aristocrats. Over time we have obtained information and experienced first hand how fragile our foundation really is. Examples of this would include the lack of a bill of rights, the unbalanced powers in our government, and overall the

A convention based out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 25, 1787 was called for the purpose of amending the Articles of Confederation. Confident to construct a new government from the ground up. Wouldn’t have been possible without the aid of the fifty-five delegates. The delegates pushed though despite their differences in opinions. Outlining our new government took well over a quarter of the year.

many years since it was established. These cases have been decided by a very close vote. Each