April
Jeffrey Toobin
Hi everyone. I don’t think it’s too hard to understand. Corporations have all sorts of rights, including first amendment rights. If The New Yorker is sued, we seek the protection of the First Amendment, even though “we” are a corporation. The question is whether a corporation should have identical rights to a human being. That’s a tougher question.Dahlia can do no wrong in my book, and I think she has a point about that decision, which does seem especially cruel.
I think constitutional law is always, at heart, political. I don’t think any system of selecting judges will change that fact. I think electing judges is a terrible idea, but I don’t think term limits or mandatory retirement is such a terrible idea.
It’s always hard to pinpoint what “causes” an election result. 2010 was going to be a Republican year even without the post-Citizens United spending by Rove and others. I suspect that this freelance money, for want of a better term, will have a significant impact in 2012, but I also think that Democrats will play a bigger role in seeking it out than the party did in 2010.
It’s a double problem at the moment. Congress shows no appetite for any kind of reform; as I point out in my piece, even the very minor DISCLOSE Act died last year, and that was when the Dems held the House. More importantly, perhaps, the Court is now signaling pretty clearly that even if Congress passed new rules, the Justices would strike it down. So I think any kind of campaign rules are doomed for the foreseeable future.