User:RavenSeldon/sandbox

Overview
The Supreme Court issued its decision on April 26, 1978, with a 5-to-4 majority vote in favor of the First National Bank of Boston. Justice Powell delivered the majority opinion and was joined by Justices Stewart, Blackmun, and Stevens, with Burger writing a separate concurring opinion. White was joined by Justices Brennan and Marshall in his dissent, with Rehnquist issuing a separate dissent. The Supreme Court ruled that corporations have First Amendment speech protections extending beyond material commercial interests, reversing the decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

Majority opinion
In its ruling, the Court first considered whether the case was moot. The constitutional amendment that the appellants had opposed had been defeated by the time the case came to the Court's attention. The Court used the scrutiny described in Weinstein v. Bradford in its determination that the case was not, in fact, moot. The Court's rationale was twofold: first, the interval between the amendment's proposal and its referendum was too short for complete judicial review to have occurred; and second, the Court found that there was a reasonable expectation that the appellants would be adversely affected by the statute again.

The Supreme Court held that the Massachusetts statute in question violated corporate speech rights protected under the First Amendment. The majority wrote that "commercial speech is accorded some constitutional protection not so much because it pertains to the seller's business as because it furthers the societal interest in the 'free flow of commercial information.'"

The majority opinion asserted that "the inherent worth of the speech in terms of its capacity for informing the public does not depend upon the identity of its source, whether corporation, association, union, or individual." In deciding the case, the Court rejected the argument that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply to corporations. The Court overruled Pierce v. Society of Sisters, which stated that corporations "cannot claim for themselves the liberty which the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees," declaring the decision to be "untenable under decisions of this Court". Instead, the Court asserted that the Due Process Clause extends freedom of speech and other First Amendment liberties to corporate entities.

The majority rejected the argument that the First Amendment rights of a corporation derive purely from their business and property interests. Furthermore, the Court asserted that "the Court's decisions involving corporations in the business of communication or entertainment are based not only on the role of the First Amendment in fostering individual self-expression, but also on its role in affording the public access to discussion, debate, and the dissemination of information and ideas". The Supreme Court cited Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, in which the Court held that whether "the advertiser's interest in a commercial advertisement is purely economic does not disqualify him from protection under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Both the individual consumer and society in general may have strong interests in the free flow of commercial information." The Court found that there was no evidence that corporations lost speech protections if their speech did not materially affect the business of the corporation. Thus, the Court held the statute violated the First Amendment rights of the corporation.

The Court also rejected the claim that the statute was "necessitated by governmental interests of the highest order". Massachusetts had argued that the statute was necessary for two reasons: first, that the State had a compelling interest in maintaining the role of the individual in the electoral process and that corporate speech would diminish this; and secondly, to protect shareholders of the corporations whose views might differ from those of the corporate management. The majority asserted that neither of these justifications was apparent in the statute. Furthermore, the decision found that there was insufficient evidence that the law was necessary to satisfy the compelling state interest test. As to the latter claim, the Court held that the statute was both underinclusive and overinclusive in regards to shareholders interests.

Concurrence
Chief Justice Burger, wrote a separate concurring opinion in order "to raise some questions likely to arise in this area in the future."

Burger wrote to emphasize the difficulty in differentiating media corporations from other corporate entities. He also pointed out that media conglomerates were a more likely threat than the appellants to the public interests raised by the state of Massachusetts, due to their immense influence. Thus, Burger concluded that "no factual distinction has been identified as yet that would justify government restraints on the right of appellants to express their views without, at the same time, opening the door to similar restraints on media conglomerates with their vastly greater influence". Burger pointed out that as newspapers merged with global media conglomerates, separating corporations from media had become untenable. Therefore, Burger argued, restrictions on speech such as the Massachusetts statute necessitated a great deal of caution. "In short," Burger wrote, "the First Amendment does not 'belong' to any definable category of persons or entities: it belongs to all who exercise its freedoms."

Dissents
A dissenting opinion by Justice White was joined by Justices Brennan and Marshall. In the dissent, White disagreed with the Court's opinion that the statute abridges the speech rights of corporations. "By holding that Massachusetts may not prohibit corporate expenditures or contributions made in connection with referenda involving issues having no material connection with the corporate business," White wrote, "the Court not only invalidates a statute which has been on the books in one form or another for many years, but also casts considerable doubt upon the constitutionality of legislation passed by some 31 States restricting corporate political activity."

White wrote that the Court had erred in not recognizing that the "state's regulatory interests... were themselves derived from the First Amendment." Specifically, White claimed that "the state had a first amendment interest in 'assuring that shareholders are not compelled to support and financially further beliefs with which they disagree.'" The only purpose uniting all shareholders, White argued, is to make a profit. Any issue not related to business interests could diverge from the interests of individual shareholders.

White also argued that states have the ability to prevent threats from corporate entities to the political process. "The State need not permit its own creation to consume it," White wrote. White noted that the nation had a history of recognizing the need to limit the influence of corporations in the political process, citing United States v. Auto Workers, in which the Court held that the primary purpose of a federal act was "to avoid the deleterious influences on federal elections resulting from the use of money by those who exercise control over large aggregations of capital."

Justice Rehnquist, in a separate dissent, sharply criticized the Court's decision. Rehnquist pointed out that, while the issue of whether corporations had the right to voice their opinions on political issues was new to the Court, the constitutional permissibility of restrictions on such speech had been considered and approved by Congress and over thirty states. He argued that this consensus by so many governmental institutionals should not be ignored in the Court's decision.

Furthermore, Rehnquist claimed that corporate speech is only protected such as it connects to commercial interests. Rehnquist concluded, "although the Court has never explicitly recognized a corporation's right of commercial speech, such a right might be considered necessarily incidental to the business of a commercial corporation. It cannot be so readily concluded that the right of political expression is equally necessary to carry out the functions of a corporation organized for commercial purposes."

Rehnquist asserted that corporate liberties did not include the right to influence and engage in political issues:
 * "I can see no basis for concluding that the liberty of a corporation to engage in political activity with regard to matters having no material effect on its business is necessarily incidental to the purposes for which the Commonwealth permitted these corporations to be organized or admitted within its boundaries. Nor can I disagree with the Supreme Judicial Court's factual finding that no such effect has been shown by these appellants. Because the statute as construed provides at least as much protection as the Fourteenth Amendment requires, I believe it is constitutionally valid."

From this conclusion, Rehnquist argued that the dissemination of information to the public is not diminished by restrictions on corporate speech on political topics. Therefore, in his view, "all natural persons... remain as free as before to engage in political activity."