John Roberts switched his Obamacare vote at the last minute

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I really don't get how Kennedy alternates from being a reasonable moderate voice in certain cases while joining the most hackish judges in issuing devastating rulings. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of backroom dealing and talks that have little to do with judicial issues going on inside the SCOTUS.

Maybe it is the fact that you judge the rulings based on a political context, that leads you to be so disappointed by what you consider to be an inconsistency in the decision making.

So you think Citizens United was a careful, well-thought, legally irreproachable and politically neutral decision?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yeah, I really don't get how Kennedy alternates from being a reasonable moderate voice in certain cases while joining the most hackish judges in issuing devastating rulings. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of backroom dealing and talks that have little to do with judicial issues going on inside the SCOTUS.

Maybe it is the fact that you judge the rulings based on a political context, that leads you to be so disappointed by what you consider to be an inconsistency in the decision making.

So you think Citizens United was a careful, well-thought, legally irreproachable and politically neutral decision?

I didn't say that, my point is that you disagree with the ruling and criticize the judges from a political standpoint. You criticize Kennedy for being a moderate, but is not not imply that 1) He either lacks a firm judicial philosophy, or 2) he possess one that doesn't fit in the confines of the standard political dynamic, hence the inconsistency when viewed from a political lense.

In my own view, I don't see how you can deny to the whole the freedoms that undeniably belong to the members of the whole as individual people, especially in a case when the group is formed specifically to advocate for an opinion that the members share, as long as membership (or in this case ownership) is a voluntary association of the people involved. I haven't read the decision, so I couldn't judge the quality of the ruling or the basis for it, but the end result is one that I do tend to agree with, especially considering that their is still a legitimate ground for congressional action and in this case, that is on the matter of full and immediate disclosure, which I support.

The area of campaign finance is a difficult one for me for a lot of reasons. On the hand I am concerned about the influence of special interest groups, but on the other, I also worry abotu incumbency and the expense and difficulty required to actually give them a challenge. It is one of the reasons why NY and CA will never not see many competative races, since not only are they hostile ideologically, but they are so damn expensive to run in. I want a level playing field, but I don't want to empower incumbency, and I most certainly don't want to leave it the preserve of self-funding millionaires, both of which is what most reforms have succeeded in doing up till now. So far, no reform I have come across yet provides me with a satisfactory answer as to what can be done to fix this problem. I really don't want to take tax payer dollars to fund Lyndon LaRouche or David Duke either through a public system. It is kind of an unfortunate situation to be in a place where we have a problem without an easy answer.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What I think of Citizens United is that it's a legally very questionable ruling which also turns out to have terrible political consequences. So yeah, the alliance of these two factors make it hard for me to think a genuine moderate would back such a ruling. I do not disagree with all the "conservative" rulings, and there aren't many rulings which I detest more than Citizens United. I have no problem with the fact Kennedy generally sides with the right: he was appointed by Reagan after all. I just have a hard time seeing Kennedy side with the right on this. Actually, I think a genuine moderate would be more likely to be on the conservative side with regard to the Prop 8 ruling, while being on the liberal side on Citizens United. In both cases, the cautious moderate would choose to defer to the legislature instead of making a judgment that would be inherently political. That's why Kennedy strikes me as weird.

As for campaign finance in itself, I would have absolutely no problem with having my tax dollars go to fund Lyndon LaRouche or David Duke's campaigns, if this is the price to pay for democracy. In fact, I'm glad that my tax euros actually go to fund Jacques Cheminade (a French LaRouchite) and Marine Le Pen. I support a strict cap on individual contributions, a complete ban on independent expenditures and contributions, a mandatory financing system and a  hard cap on total campaign spending. "Freedom of speech" means to give anyone the same opportunity to speak, not to allow those with money to monopolize the debate.

[politicallefty]

Citizens United is actually one of the biggest reasons I'm so repulsed by this suddenly uber cautious attitude coming from the Court on these cases, mostly on the Prop 8 case. Yes, as if the Court genuinely cares about not making far-reaching rulings that have a great impact on society and decades upon decades of statute after that case.

I think the most troubling aspect of Citizens United was how the Court turned what would have been a rather limited opinion into a broad constitutional one. The Supreme Court was originally going to decide the case on narrow grounds. However, the majority forced it into a re-argument on the broader constitutional issue. As Justice Stevens mentioned in his dissent, Citizens United had already dropped its facial challenge of that particular section of the BCRA. The Court took it upon itself to issue a much broader decision than necessary. I would agree with you that the Chief Justice really is a hypocrite if he denies a broad equal protection argument on gay (marriage) rights in light of his actions in Citizens United.

Those issues have nothing to do with each other. Would he also be a hypocrite if he supported a broad equal protection argument but a narrow reading on political speech?

The problem in Citizens United was that the Court took it upon itself to entirely expand the scope of its decision. In the original case, there was no facial challenge at hand with regards to the relevant sections of the BCRA. The Supreme Court could have easily exercised judicial restraint and ruled in favor of Citizens United on its as-applied challenge. In Hollingsworth, there is a broader constitutional issue being raised by the parties. The opponents of Prop 8 are asking for gay marriage to be protected under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. There is no parallel in Citizens United, where the broader constitutional issue was forced only by the Court itself. That is not an exercise of judicial restraint.