Last night during the State of the Union Address Barack Obama did something one would be hard pressed to find an incident of in the history of such addresses. Obama dressed down the Supreme Court for its recent, and correct, decision on corporate money going to political campaigns or issues.
Barack Obama mischaracterized the ruling when he said:
With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign corporations –- to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.) I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. (Applause.) They should be decided by the American people. And I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems. White House.gov
The ruling by the court specifically rules out foreign donations as does federal law. That was not overturned. The issue at hand dealt with an organization that was not allowed to air a movie prior to an election. The court ruled it was a free speech issue which it is. Obama was absolutely incorrect and his lie resulted in Justice Samuel Alito mouthing the words “not true” (it looked to me like he said “simply not true”).
Today the focus was on Alito, who did nothing wrong, and not on the huge error Obama made. The funny thing is that the focus on this took some of the attention off Obama’s SOTU and agenda.
Obama was wrong to use that forum to lash out at a coequal branch of government. He picked on people who show up and sit still the entire time. They do not stand or applaud for issues to maintain impartiality.
It is a bully tactic and was used to score points. Obama wants Congress to do something to correct this decision. It was Congressional action that led to the decision in the first place. This will come back to bite him in a number of ways. I think it is safe to say that any issue of his that hits the SCOTUS had better be in top order.
Linda Greenhouse of the NYT reports this about the decision:
The law that Congress enacted in the populist days of the early 20th century prohibited direct corporate contributions to political campaigns. That law was not at issue in the Citizens United case, and is still on the books. Rather, the court struck down a more complicated statute that barred corporations and unions from spending money directly from their treasuries — as opposed to their political action committees — on television advertising to urge a vote for or against a federal candidate in the period immediately before the election. It is true, though, that the majority wrote so broadly about corporate free speech rights as to call into question other limitations as well — although not necessarily the existing ban on direct contributions.
The decision did not change that century old law and it dealt specifically with money from corporate treasuries and airing ads (or movies) in the period just before an election.
Obama got a few other facts wrong last night but one would expect a so called Constitutional law professor to know the facts of a case if he is going to address it.
Saul Alinksy would be proud of him. The only problem is that Alinsky never figured the population would rise in large numbers.
And neither did Obama. Perhaps that is because he is deaf to the increasing roar of the people.
I think in November he might actually begin to hear and understand.
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