纽约时报：言论自由与含混不清的选举法

CampusHR

编者按：用《纽约时报》社论的话说，最高法院的一次判决重挫美国的民主。由于这一判决，美国选举制度发生了重大变化。自从这一判决之后，不仅奥巴马总统在发表国情咨文时公开批评这一判决，国会中的许多议员也纷纷提出立法草案，试图限制这一判决对美国民主进程的侵蚀。而这一判决的根据是美国宪法关于言论自由的第一修正案：限制一个人的政治献金就等于剥夺一个人言论自由。企业是有人格化的机构，因此也不能剥夺它们的言论自由。目前国会的一个立法草案规定在企业决定向候选人提供大笔捐款时需要征得股东的同意；另一个草案规定严禁任何外国公司对美国候选人搞政治捐款。美国的政治，特别是选举政治，被金钱所侵蚀是无可争辩的事实，但是即使如此，北京日报发表的“西方选举制度真相”一文并不客观。

　　从经典的美国宪法第一修正案的理论来看，有些事很简单。那就是，如果没有令人信服的理由，政府就不应该审查言论，而民众则有权对其所见所闻持有独立见解。
　　这样看来，美国最高法院上月做出的宣布禁禁止销售斗狗视频禁的法律违宪也就不足为奇了。同样，最高法院还在今年1月时决定选举改革法案违宪，该法案认定由企业出资、在选举期间播放批评希拉里·克林顿的宣传片为违法。
　　比起否决禁止销售斗狗视频案，后一案例，联合公民诉联邦选举委员会案更容易让人理解，起码宪法第一修正案尤其对政府审查政治言论的行为持怀疑态度。
　　但是，如果转从联邦选举法的角度来看，联合公民诉联邦选举委员会案就不那么简单了。
　　自从美国最高法院在1976年裁决巴克利诉瓦雷奥案后，联邦选举法就仰赖于一种人为判定。巴克利认为，政府能够限制个人对候选人的捐款，但却不能限制这些个人私下花钱以间接地帮助其候选人竞选。
　　政府为何不能这样做？对此，最高法院的解释是，向候选人直接捐款会导致腐败，但个人的独立花费则关乎言论自由。个人向某位竞选者捐款2500美元是违法的，但花2500万美元为这位竞选者做竞选广告则是合法的。
　　联合公民把这一逻辑扩展到了企业身上。企业对竞选者的捐款是被禁止的，但现在它们则可以自由地为选举活动花钱了。
　　这二者之间的区别在法学界还尚未被普遍认可。
　　"巴克利就像是棵腐烂的树，" 纽约大学法学教授布尔特·纽伯恩在1997年写道，"只要用力一推，巴克利的论断就会想一棵腐烂的树一样倾倒。而唯一的问题在于是往哪个方向推。"
　　纽伯恩教授还提到，他更倾向于支持政府对于竞选捐款和独立花费二者都采取合理的限制。但同时他也说"任何改变都是受欢迎的"，哪怕一个对二者完全不加限制的体制也好过一个自相矛盾的体制。
　　打赢联合公民案的律师西奥多·B·奥尔森上月回到了最高法院。他的所作所为正是在继续推到巴克利这棵树。
　　如今奥尔森代表共和党全国委员会提出上诉，指出按照联合公民的逻辑，只要款项不被用于与联邦选举有关的活动，向政党捐款就应当不受限制。而根据目前的规定，个人的此类捐款上限为30400美元，而商业机构则禁止捐款。（此类捐款也被称为"软钱"。）
　　最高法院很可能审理这一案件，甚至也许就在这个夏天。这就提出了一个有趣的双重问题，即如何理解政治献金导致腐败以及如何定义独立花费。
　　在2003年的麦康奈尔诉联邦选举委员会案中，最高法院指出"在全国性政党委员会和控制这些委员会的官员之间，没有有意义的区别，"对政党的大额捐款"可能在事实上或貌似地使联邦公职人员有所亏欠，并可能让捐款者有优先接近联邦公职人员的机会。"
　　这听起来正像是巴克利意在阻止的那种献金导致的腐败。
　　抑或，现在对这种腐败的理解已经改变。
　　在联合公民一案中，大法官安东尼·M·肯尼迪代表多数派对腐败采用了一个非常狭义的定义。仅仅凭"讨好和接近"来判断腐败是不够的，他说。
　　"捐款者能够对竞选官员施加影响或能够接近他们并不意味着这些官员有腐败行为，"大法官安东尼说，"而且，这种影响和接近不会使选民丧失对我们的民主的信念。"
　　这一声明与肯尼迪在卡珀顿诉马西案中的多数派意见有所冲突。该案仅比联合公民案早7个月判决。在卡珀顿案中，安东尼指出，帮助西弗吉尼亚州法官竞选的300万美元的独立花费有引起偏见的可能性。
　　肯尼迪还指出，该州法官应当在涉及马西行政官员的案件中主动回避，因为是该官员支付了这笔花费，这名法官可能会觉得"欠了他的情"。
　　然而，在联合公民案中，肯尼迪却认为政客们是坚定不屈的。他写道，"缺乏证据显示独立花费就等同于讨好"。
　　奥尔森也打赢了卡珀顿诉马西案，但他并没有在其代表共和党全国委员会提出的上诉中提及此案。
　　相反，他对法院说，根据联合公民案，对软钱的禁令"从宪法角度看不再站得住脚"。一个下级法院在3月对奥尔森的委托人作出了不利判决，但其似乎对此判决并不情愿。该法院说，这一判决受制于麦康奈尔案中的明确表述，而非联合公民案的。
　　准许软钱的看法"拥有强大的逻辑和力量，"布雷特·M·卡瓦纳夫法官为哥伦比亚区联邦法院的一个由三名法官组成的高级审判组写道。

　　"在现行法律中，外部集团──不像候选人以及政党──可以接受不受限制的捐款，用以宣传他们支持的联邦候选人或做广告赞助。"
　　但是卡瓦纳夫法官也指出，"在政治和立法辩论中对全国性政党的歧视"引起的不公正可向最高法院上诉。
　　奥尔森可从中收到启发，而巴克利这棵树也会继续摇摇欲倾，倒向对联邦选举中的献金和言论自由放松管制的那个方向。

英文原文：

May 3, 2010
Free Speech Through the Foggy Lens of Election Law
By ADAM LIPTAK
WASHINGTON
From the perspective of classical First Amendment theory, some cases are easy. The government should not censor speech without a really good reason, and people should be allowed to make up their own minds about what they see and hear.
On that view, it was unsurprising that the Supreme Court last month struck down a law that made it a crime to sell videos of dogfights. Or that in January it held unconstitutional a law that made it a crime to broadcast a documentary attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton, at least if shown during the election season and paid for by a corporation.
That second case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, was in some ways the easier of the two, at least under a conception of the First Amendment that is particularly skeptical of government censorship of political speech.
But you can also think about Citizens United through the lens of election law. Then things get foggier.
Ever since the Supreme Court’s 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo, election law has relied on what many people think is an artificial distinction. The government may regulate contributions from individuals to politicians, Buckley said, but it cannot stop those same people from spending money independently to help elect those same politicians.
Why not? Contributions directly to politicians can give rise to corruption or its appearance, the court said, but independent spending is free speech. A $2,500 contribution to a politician is illegal; a $25 million independent ad campaign to elect the same politician is not.
Citizens United extended this logic to corporations. Corporate contributions to candidates are still banned, but corporations may now spend freely in candidate elections.
The distinction between contributions and spending has not been popular in the legal academy.
“Buckley is like a rotten tree,” Burt Neuborne, a law professor at New York University, wrote in 1997. “Give it a good, hard push and, like a rotten tree, Buckley will keel over. The only question is in which direction.”
Professor Neuborne wrote that he would prefer reasonable government regulation of both spending and contributions. But he added that “any change would be welcome” and that even a completely unregulated system would be preferable to an intellectually incoherent one.
Theodore B. Olson, the lawyer who won the Citizens United case, was back in the Supreme Court last month, and he was still pushing on the tree that is Buckley.
Now he has filed an appeal on behalf of the Republican National Committee, which argues that the logic of Citizens United should allow unlimited contributions to political parties, now capped at $30,400 for individuals and forbidden for corporations, so long as they are spent on activities unrelated to federal elections. (The shorthand for this kind of contribution is “soft money.”)
The Supreme Court is quite likely to hear the case, perhaps even over the summer. It presents an interesting hybrid question that tests the limits of the corruption rationale and the meaning of independent spending.
In 2003, in McConnell v. F.E.C., the Supreme Court said there was “no meaningful distinction between the national party committees and the public officials who control them.” Large contributions to parties “are likely to create actual or apparent indebtedness on the part of federal officeholders,” the court said, and “are likely to buy donors preferential access to federal officeholders.”
That sounds like the sort of corruption-through-contributions that Buckley meant to prevent.
Or perhaps that has now changed.
In Citizens United, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, adopted a very narrow definition of corruption. “Ingratiation and access” are not enough, he said.
“The fact that speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that these officials are corrupt,” Justice Kennedy went on. “The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.”
That statement was in some tension with Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., decided just seven months before Citizens United. In Caperton, Justice Kennedy said $3 million of independent spending to help elect a West Virginia Supreme Court justice could give rise to the appearance of a probability of bias.
The state judge, Justice Kennedy went on, should have disqualified himself from a case involving the coal executive who had spent all that money. The problem, he wrote, was that the judge might appear to feel “a debt of gratitude”
In Citizens United, though, Justice Kennedy suggested that politicians were made of sterner stuff. With politicians, he wrote, “there is only scant evidence that independent expenditures even ingratiate.”
Mr. Olson was the lawyer who won the Caperton case, too. But he did not mention it in his recent appeal.
Instead, he told the court that bans on soft-money contributions to political parties “are no longer constitutionally tenable” in light of Citizens United. A lower court ruled against Mr. Olson’s clients in March, but it seemed to be holding its nose as it did so, saying it was bound by the plain words of McConnell rather than the logic of Citizens United.
The argument in favor of allowing soft-money contributions “carries considerable logic and force,” Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote for a special three-judge panel of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia.
“Under current law, outside groups — unlike candidates and political parties — may receive unlimited donations both to advocate in favor of federal candidates and to sponsor issue ads,” Judge Kavanaugh wrote.
But he added that the arguments about a disparity that “discriminates against the national political parties in political and legislative debates” should be directed to the Supreme Court.
Mr. Olson can take a hint, and the tree that is Buckley continues to teeter, leaning more and more toward the deregulation of money and speech in federal campaigns.
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