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Thursday 28 January 2010

If the government’s reason for silencing corporations is that they don’t like what corporations would say — if it thinks, for example, that it would be too Republican, or too pro-business — then that’s got to be a terrible reason for the regulation, and we all ought to support a decision that strikes a law so inspired. That, however, is not the only, or the best, justification behind the regulations at issue in Citizens United. Those rules not about suppressing a point of view. They’re about avoiding a kind of dependency that undermines trust in our government. The concentrated, and tacitly, coordinated efforts by large and powerful economic entities — made large and powerful in part because of the gift of immunity given by the state — could certainly help lead many to believe “money is buying results” in Congress. Avoiding that belief — just like avoiding the belief that money bought results on the Supreme Court — has got to be an important and valid interest of the state. Lawrence Lessig

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