What, respectively, would they make of the Citizens United holding now?Ĭitizens United involved a statute that restricted electoral advocacy but its restrictions were intended to apply, and in practice did apply, far more broadly to reach advocacy that was not electoral but took place in an election year (e.g., the ACLU’s criticism of an elected official who was also a candidate running for re-election). Now Disney, a corporation, speaks in a manner pleasing to liberals and displeasing to conservatives. amicus brief of Pacific Legal Foundation in Citizens United ). Forum), while conservatives applauded it (see e.g. Floyd Abrams, “ Citizens United and Its Critics ,” Yale L. Liberals generally hated that holding (see e.g. Federal Election Commission (2010) held that corporations’ speech was protected by the First Amendment. I imagine many liberals would agree with him, and that many conservatives would not. Robert Corn-Revere’s recent analysis of the Disney controversy is, in my view, exactly right, and I commend it.
The following commentary is by Ira Glasser, who served as the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1978 to 2001.
