Corporations as Speakers

This chapter examines the justices' views and the reasoning behind Supreme Court's 5–4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. It does so through a review of the second oral argument before the Court and an analysis of the Court's opinion. After the Court had first heard oral argument in 2009, it scheduled a second argument and instructed the parties to brief and argue the general question of the constitutional status of corporate speech. The Court had ruled in prior cases that much corporate speech was protected by the First Amendment, but as a general rule the protection afforded such speech was weak and limited. After taking full stock of the Court's decision, and in light of the virtual absence of serious constitutional analysis of the core question of the First Amendment's meaning, the chapter then steps back and considers from a fresh and broader perspective whether corporations should be fully protected speakers under the First Amendment, drawing on the Constitution's text, its history, and the structural, philosophical, and practical considerations that bear on this central question.