Categories
Archive
Links
Jurist Pittsburgh
A Legal Alternative to Modern Living in a Changing America
JURIST
According to the Fellowship for Intentional Community, "Intentional Community is an inclusive term for ecovillages, co-housing communities, residential land trusts, communes, student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives, intentional living, ...
[JURIST] American Tradition Partnership, Montana Shooting Sports Association [advocacy websites] and Champion Painting have petitioned the US Supreme Court [official website] to reverse the decision by the Montana Supreme Court [official website] in Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Montana that corporations cannot directly contribute to political campaigns or candidates [JURIST report]. The three groups argue that Montana's century-old ban on corporate spending, implemented by the 1912 Corrupt Practices Act [PPL backgrounder], is illegal [Great Falls Tribune report] in light of the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission [JURIST report] that declared that a state cannot impose a complete ban on corporate spending. The Montana Supreme Court stated that the ban on corporate spending is legal because it still allows for some corporate spending and was in response to rampant political corruption by the "Copper Kings" [Great Falls Tribune backgrounder].
Campaign finance [JURIST news archive] has been a hotly contested issue recently. Two weeks ago, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit [official website] struck down [JURIST report] a Wisconsin law that prohibited people from donating more than $10,000 per year to political action committees. In June, the US Supreme Court ruled that an Arizona campaign finance regulation violated the First Amendment [JURIST report]. In May, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit [official website] upheld [JURIST report] a Minnesota law that prohibited direct contributions to candidates and affiliated entities. The US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] ruled in 2009 that a Connecticut campaign finance law discriminated against minor party candidates [JURIST report] in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.