Re: Citizens United Decided

[Eric Segall]

Here is the quote I was referring to (and Alito joined it).

 "To the extent that the Government’s case for reaffirming  Austin 
depends on radically reconceptualizing its reasoning, that argument is
at odds with itself.  Stare decisis is a doctrine of preservation, not
transformation. It counsels deference to past mistakes, but provides no
justification for making new ones. There is therefore no basis for the
Court to give precedential sway to reasoning that it has never accepted,
simply because that reasoning happens to support a conclusion reached on
different grounds that have since been abandoned or discredited.

     Doing so would undermine the rule-of-law values that justify stare
decisis in the first place. It would effectively license the Court to
invent and adopt new principles of constitutional law solely for the
purpose of rationalizing its past errors, without a proper analysis of
whether those principles have merit on their own. This approach would
allow the Court’s past missteps to spawn future mistakes, undercutting
the very rule-of-law values that stare decisis is designed to protect."


>>> Lawrence Solum <lso...@gmail.com> 1/21/2010 10:46 AM >>>
Links on Legal Theory Blog:
http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2010/01/citizens-united-decided-major-changes-in-campaign-finace-laws.html

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