Daily Archives: June 27, 2012

WASHINGTON The Supreme Court's affirmation Monday that corporations have the right to engage in direct political activity squelched a long-shot hope of campaign finance reform advocates of rolling back Citizens United, the 2010 decision that ushered in a new era of unbridled campaign spending.

In a 5-4 decision, the court summarily overturned a century-old Montana state law that banned corporate political expenditures, saying it conflicted with the First Amendment speech rights of corporations contained in the Citizens United case.

The ruling, while expected, served to underline the bleak landscape facing proponents of campaign finance regulations just a decade after the landmark McCain-Feingold Act restricted large, unregulated donations in federal elections.

Now, not only can corporations spend unlimited amounts of money on politics, but the 2012 campaign has been marked by the explosive growth of 'super PACs" independent political committees produced by a lower court decision that followed Citizens United and fueled by wealthy individuals and private companies. And with Monday's action, the Supreme Court made it clear that any state laws seeking to ban corporate political expenditures are unconstitutional.

Such spending is "threatening the health of our democracy," said White House spokesman Eric Schultz, adding that the court missed an opportunity to correct the "mistake" it made in Citizens United.

The silver lining, reform advocates hope, is that the return of big money into the system will trigger a public backlash.

"By the time this election is over, the country is going to look at the campaign finance system we have and think it is corrupt and insane," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21. "And this is going to create major new opportunities for reform. When the country demands change, elected officials tend to pay attention."

But the court's ruling in the Montana case makes it that much harder to curtail Citizens United, in part because it affirmed the idea that independent expenditures are not corrupting. Without a change in the makeup of the court, overturning the decision will require a constitutional amendment, no small feat.

In the meantime, campaign finance reformers find themselves fending off challenges to remaining laws, particularly disclosure rules now being assailed by conservatives.

The Montana case hinged on a law dating to 1912 that attempted to curb the immense influence copper mining companies then exerted in state politics. (One so-called Copper King, William Andrews Clark, secured a U.S. Senate seat in 1899 by bribing state lawmakers.)

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Supreme Court affirms corporate free speech

The release last Friday of nine activists in Azerbaijan jailed since last spring for organising peaceful protests against the government should not distract international attention from an ongoing crackdown on free expression in the country, Amnesty International has warned.

While we welcome the long overdue release of these nine protesters, they should never have been behind bars in the first place, said John Dalhuisen, Europe and Central Asia Director at Amnesty International.

The release came ahead of todays vote on a report on political prisoners in Azerbaijan by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights in Strasbourg. The report prepared by Christopher Strasser, a German MP denied entry to the country, lists around 100 alleged political prisoners who should be released immediately or given a fair trial. The report was adopted by a narrow majority.

Amnesty International very much welcomes the adoption of Strassers report and urges the Azeri authorities to cooperate with the Parliamentary Assembly in the resolving this longstanding issue said Dalhuisen.

The nine activists recognised as Prisoners of Conscience by Amnesty International released Friday night are Arif Hajili, Tural Abbasli, Rufat Hajibaili, Ahad Mammadli, Mahammad Majidli, Zulfugar Eyvazov, Sahib Karimov, Ulvi Guliyev and Babek Hasanov.

In an act presumably intended to stop his campaigning activity, Tural Abbasli, the leader of the youth wing of the opposition Musavat Party, has been summoned to begin military service in July.

The day before President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree ordering the release of the nine, Hilal Mamedov, the editor of a minority language newspaper, was arrested on spurious drugs charges.

The arrest followed Mamedovs posting on Youtube of an Azerbaijani rap battle entitled Who are you, come on, off you go which became a viral hit and was subsequently adapted by opposition campaigners in Russia to attack President Putin.

Local rights activists suspect he was arrested partly to prevent greater media interest in the rights of the Talysh minority he campaigns to protect following the videos publication.

He was detained by police without explanation, taken to a police station and searched, where officers claim to have found a package containing 5 grams of heroin on him. They claim to have found a further 20 grams in his home.

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Azerbaijan crackdown on free speech continues amid activists’ release

After years of benign neglect neglect that was anything but benign for the victims bullying has finally moved to the top of the school-climate agenda.

Today, 49 states and the District of Columbia have anti-bullying laws in place (Montana is the lone holdout). The U.S. Department of Education has issued guidance on how schools can fight bullying and harassment. And many local school districts are moving vigorously to address a serious and widespread problem.

But as school officials act to stop bullying, they need to know when and where to draw the line on student expression. The challenge is to stop bullies without overreacting by censoring students' protected religious and political speech.

It goes without saying that creating and sustaining a safe learning environment is job one for school administrators. But how can public schools balance the need for school safety with a commitment to freedom of expression?

To help answer this question, a coalition of 17 education and religious groups released guidelines on May 22 designed to help public schools combat bullying and harassment while simultaneously upholding the rights of students to free speech and free exercise of religion under the First Amendment.

Harassment, Bullying and Freedom of Expression: Guidelines for Free and Safe Public Schools has been endorsed by diverse religious voices such as the Christian Legal Society, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Hindu American Foundation, as well as leading educational associations, including the National School Boards Association, the American Association of School Administrators and the National Association of State Boards of Education. (A full list of endorsers and the text of the guide are available at http://www.religiousfreedomeducation.org).

My own organization, the First Amendment Center's Religious Freedom Education Project, worked closely with the American Jewish Committee over the past year to produce the document.

As the guidelines explain, much harassment and bullying is physical, targeting an individual student or classes of students for unwanted touching, bodily assault or threats of violence. Prohibiting such actions in schools raises no First Amendment concerns.

But bullying can also be verbal, creating a hostile school climate. Following current law, the guidelines draw a distinction between student speech that expresses an idea, including religious and political views, and student speech that is intended to cause (or school officials demonstrate is likely to cause) emotional or psychological harm to the listener.

The former is, in most circumstances, protected speech, but the latter may and should be stopped.

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Fight bullying, but protect religious, political speech