Clarence Thomas on Citizens United

Via Jen Rubin over at Commentary, I see that Clarence Thomas recently commented on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In addition to pointing out the obvious irony of the case — that corporations like The Washington Post and The New York Times were the ones agitating for regulating political speech by corporations — he gave a little bit of historical background as to why corporations were originally banned from contributing to campaigns way back in 1907:

“Go back and read why Tillman introduced that legislation,” Justice Thomas said, referring to Senator Benjamin Tillman. “Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.”

It is thus a mistake, the justice said, to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as “some sort of beatific action.”

Then there’s this, which I still find the most compelling argument — indeed, the only one, really — that the majority needed to make:

“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,” he said. “If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.”

“But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?” Justice Thomas asked, suggesting that the answer must be the same.

As I’ve said before, that’s the heart of the issue. We shouldn’t be afraid that Exxon is going to go out and buy a candidate; we should be afraid that the government can say “OK, you group of people don’t get to promulgate your political message in the run-up to the election because, well, you can’t. So there.” That just strikes me as insane.