Sadly, I am old enough to remember the long ago, halcyon days when people were the only ones with the right of free speech. We reigned supreme, or thought we did.
Just how much is your speech worth these days? It used to be one of our most important rights. It was a part of the First Amendment, the Bill of Rights. Again, how much is it worth today?
Over the years many people suffered and sacrificed to maintain that right. Alas, it only exists on parchment now. Some buffoons came up with the ridiculous idea that, because they had more money than you and me, their speech was more important than ours. So, our free speech was debased to the point of being no better than money.
Money is speech. Ah, but I am serious. I’m certain that if someone had made that claim back in my civics class of yore (yes, we had schools back then), every kid there would have laughed themself silly. So, what’s the big deal? Along with the Right of Free Speech, this corruption of our society by monetization of everything now extends, essentially, to all of our rights.
Below I have cut-and-pasted an editorial from the New York Times of September 7th. I promise I will stop doing this. Two posts in a row is only a coincidence.
It provides the details but, basically, it points out that if you don’t have $3 million to throw at politicians your rights no longer exist. The idea that money can influence public policy and outcomes is unconscionable. The idea that it prevails means the America described in our civics and history books is now merely a fairy tale.
Corporations have been given fictional personalities by legal legerdemain. But these legal personalities are not truly answerable to the courts. Have you ever seen one in prison? How often are they executed for making profit from a product they have known is deadly? Even the executives routinely get a slap on the wrist, if even that.
There is a favorite quote of mine that I hope you will remember. “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” It is from a certified expert on the subject, Benito Mussolini.
Here is the editorial. Read it and weep.
Conflict-of-interest disputes often turn on arcane points of law, but that is hardly the case with the controversy over the West Virginia Supreme Court and Massey Energy.
Massey’s chief executive spent an extraordinary $3 million to help elect a state justice who then voted to throw out a major damage award against the company.
The West Virginia Supreme Court first tossed out the $50 million verdict against Massey Energy in 2007. But it decided to rehear the case after photos surfaced of a different justice — Chief Justice Elliott Maynard — vacationing in Monte Carlo with Massey’s chief executive, Don Blankenship, while the case was pending.
The chief justice disqualified himself from the rehearing, as did another justice, who had publicly criticized Mr. Blankenship and his firm.
The court once again ruled in Massey’s favor.
As before, the deciding vote was cast by Justice Brent Benjamin. He refused to recuse himself despite the $3 million that Mr. Blankenship spent to get him elected.
Judicial neutrality and the appearance of neutrality are basic elements of due process. Not every contribution to a judicial campaign triggers due process concerns significant enough to require recusal, but Mr. Blankenship’s out-sized campaign expenditures surely did.
Across the country, state courts are drowning in a sea of special-interest campaign money. The American Bar Association has good standards for judicial recusal, which nearly every state court system and the federal judiciary have adopted.
Unfortunately, compliance is spotty. Situations like the Massey Energy case create an unmistakable impression that justice is for sale. The United States Supreme Court should add the Massey case to its docket for the upcoming term and throw out the court’s tainted ruling.
Me again.
Money distorts everything about our system. You don’t have $3 million to donate. You can’t provide a politician with a trip to Monte Carlo. You can’t afford justice. You’re just an American citizen.
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{ 3 comments }
Sorry for not furthering the discussion, but I just wanted to say thank you for the insightful post.
While I agree with you that this case is outrageous, I don’t follow the reference to free speech. It is certainly a violation of the right to due process, but I don’t see the free speech aspect.
I was almost ready to write a post on the court’s opinion that money is free speech. Then I happened on this editorial. It simply shows that the problem is far more pervasive than just allowing corporations to hog all of the air time because they have money. That distorts the system with a heavy thumb on one side of the scale.
The corporation in the editorial spent most of that money exercising their ‘right’ of free speech to elect someone to take their side. It’s just that in speaking about free speech we rarely connect it to campaigns for judicial office. It is very strange that West Virginia elects their supreme court but most judges below that level are elected in all states.
Giving money the ‘constitutional right’ of free speech has affected the outcome of that particular case. I find it difficult to believe that is the only such case out there.
Corporations are not people. That seems sensible enough. With the probable exception of Hamilton, the Founding Fathers’ thoughts on corporations ranged from strong distrust of them to feeling the new nation would be better off if they did not exist. We apparently don’t give them sufficient credit for their insight and concern for the citizenry.
I just saw this case as part of a continuum of corruption of the system in favor of money that included both aspects.
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