Judge Stevens’ Dissent-
     Appointed by Gerald Ford in 1975, John Stevens is the oldest member of the Supreme Court.  After reading his dissent from the majority opinion of the Supreme Court on Citizens United v. FEC  I believe he might be among the wisest as well. 

     Judge Stevens wrote an overwhelming 90 pages explaining the reason for his dissent in the recent Supreme Court case.  With a majority of 5, the Supreme Court claimed that a statute of the BCRA infringed upon Citizen United’s First Amendment rights.  Without the unfocused giddiness of youth, Stevens is able to create a cohesive argument that shows how the Supreme Courts’ ruling was a “technical glitch”.  His introduction immediately jumps into the “principal holdings” of the court with which he disagrees.  The courts think that Citizens United argument hinges on “if” corporations are protected by the first amendment and Stevens identified the hinge to be “how” they are protected.  This confusion, Stevens claims, has caused the court to overturn a century of jurisprudence.  Stevens further elaborates on this inaccurate understanding of the case by the court when he discusses how the court has overreached their bounds.  He explains that even if Citizens United’s First Amendment Rights had been violated, that would have been only a partial challenge of a BCRA statue and not a Facial Challenge, which is necessary for a statute to be addressed in its entirety.  If the entirety of a statute or law is challenged then research is conducted to perform analysis on the benefits of said law.  The courts completely ignored this code.
      Stevens claims that the courts basic premise which is the “constant reiteration, of the proposition that the First Amendment bars regulatory distinctions based on a speaker’s identity, including its “identity” as a corporation”  to be nothing more than a “glittering generality [that] has rhetorical appeal [but] it is not a correct statement of the law”.  To further discredit the majority Stevens adds “The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is…inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.”

       At the end of this introductory segment Stevens writes “I regret the length of what follows, but the importance and novelty of the Court’s opinion require a full response.”  Within one sentence he tells us several important things.  First if this was our first time reading a judge’s case writings he goes ahead and tells us that this one is unusually long, Second, he tells us that this is necessary because the Supreme Court majority was so seriously misguided. 

       To prove the misguided nature of the majority decision, Stevens provides a history lesson on the United States framers and how back then, the corporate world operated in a realm designed by the government.  He tells us of the philosophies of founding father types like Thomas Jefferson who understood the “soulless” nature of corporations.   

      Perhaps the only way to really appreciate this substantial plea for Socratic rationality is to dive into it yourself.  The text is available online.

      Hopefully rational argument will triumph.

                 -Katie Kocher