I say that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. In the Dobbs decision, Samuel Alito cleverly dispensed with the precedent of Roe v Wade arguing that Roe was wrongly decided because there was no long legal tradition/basis in law for permitting abortion. I guess that a 50-year precedent really isn’t long enough to merit respect.
Let’s run with that logic and revisit Citizens United. In Citizens United, the court argued that financial contributions to political campaigns represented speech, and as such, speech was protected under the First Amendment. That is to say, “Money Talks.” Now, using Alito logic, the court should revisit that decision looking for the long historical evidence that money is speech.
I think that it is obvious to all of us that speech constitutes speech. Writing constitutes speech. Art constitutes speech. And money constitutes power and influence – not speech. If the framers, in writing the First Amendment, had wanted money to be protected in the same way as speech, they would have said so. But they didn’t! I can’t fathom how any self-respecting constitutional originalist would argue that money is speech. That’s just malarky, Uncle Joe might say.
So, let’s bring a case to the SCOTUS challenging Citizens United on the basis that the original decision was wrongly made with clear disrespect for the First Amendment as it is written.
Can I get an Amen?