Quote of J. Roberts in the decision announced Jan. 20, 2010, in
/Citizens United/ <http://www.scribd.com/doc/25537902/Citizens-Opinion>
(joined by Alito).
"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."
I have highlighted the references to "past mistakes", which is an
acknowledgment that the Court has made mistakes in its decisions, and
maintains it is more important to continue those past mistakes than to
correct them. That is logically incompatible with the oath judges take
to uphold the Constitution, and grounds for impeachment and removal.
Links on Legal Theory Blog:
http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2010/01/citizens-united-decided-major-changes-in-campaign-finace-laws.html
This decision essentially means campaigns can now accept donations from
corporations.
See my Draft Amendments
<http://www.constitution.org/reform/us/con_amend.htm> that include an
amendment to forbid such use of /stare decisis/.
-- Jon
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