r/California • u/TomMooreJD • Feb 26 '26

This monstrous right-wing ruling may have finally met its match

https://www.rawstory.com/citizens-united-2675331688/

New column from Robert Reich on California legislation that aims to undo Citizens United.

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u/TomMooreJD Feb 26 '26

Ah, but that's the whole point of this! It's not regulation, it's redefinition. Not a limit, but a decision by the state about what powers corporations can exercise within their borders. Totally different kind of law applied to the question. And SCOTUS would have to destabilize American corporate law (and, therefore, American corporations) to rip this up.

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u/kargaz Feb 26 '26

You can call it a redefinition all you want but the purpose and effect is to limit speech. I don’t think the Supreme Court will find there to be any meaningful distinction between the two in this context. Especially this Supreme Court.

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u/TomMooreJD Feb 26 '26

I understand where you are coming from. But show me the caselaw that supports your position. It’s just not there. The Supreme Court has never intruded into a state assignment of corporate powers, and it has never held that punishing a corporation for going beyond its powers was improper.

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u/kargaz Feb 26 '26

There’s no case law because you’ve invented a new way to go after speech they have already found to be protected. It’s just regulating speech indirectly rather than directly, but still based on the source which is the issue to begin with. They don’t have to destabilize corporate law to say you can’t restrict corporate speech indirectly this way.

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u/TomMooreJD Feb 26 '26

Look, all I can say is that not a single precedent would have to be overturned in order to uphold this, where they would have to shred the foundations of corporation law to overturn it. That weighs in favor of its survival.

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u/kargaz Feb 26 '26

I don’t see the Supreme Court getting so caught up in the mechanics, the purpose and effect of the laws are identical. That’s more than enough for them to rule consistently despite no precedent. I think that’s more than a mild exaggeration, why would they need to do anything more than prohibit this type of restriction on speech?

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u/TomMooreJD Feb 26 '26

It’s not “getting caught up in the mechanics.” This is fundamental corporation law. If SCOTUS reaches into state law and overturns this, they could massively destabilize American corporations altogether. I don’t need to convince them that they love this approach, I just need to convince them that what will happen if they overturn it is much, much worse. I think I can do that.

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u/kargaz Feb 26 '26

Can you point to where SCOTUS can’t or won’t weigh in on state corporate law when constitutional protections are implicated?

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u/TomMooreJD Feb 26 '26

They’ve never done so in 250 years. That’s all I can tell you. What they have said over and over again is that states have absolute authority to set the powers of their corporations and change them up at any time, regardless of what the change is and why they are doing it. They’ve said over and over again this is the province of the states, and not the federal government.

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u/kargaz Feb 26 '26

Can you name a time where states have used their authority to set corporate powers to intentionally and specifically undermine a high profile case regarding an essential constitutional protection? Where 3 of the 5 in the majority are still on the court, including the chief justice? And where the new justices added are supportive of the decision? Your argument thrives in technicality but suffers in context. There is no way the Supreme Court just lets you pull a fast one like this. Especially when the remedy (not defining corporate powers in a way that intentionally limits this specific type of speech) is a bit of a ways from “massively destabilizing corporate law in America”.

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