A quick run-through of the comments so far indicates to me that no one has actually read the text of the decision. And as an amateur devotee of court decisions that affect my own interests and research, I know what every lawyer knows: the devil is in the details.

Not yet posssessed myself of a preliminary copy of the decision I can only wonder about the following:

For starters, I’m wondering if the only basis of the decision was 1st Amendment free speech rights. It seems to me that had the arguments–whatever they were–before the court gone into attainder territory we might have had another angle entirely. I’m referring to the history of attainder jurisprudence (I.e., no laws can be passed that find or imply that a person or a group are somehow guilty and subject of punishment or restriction without a trial governed by judicial protections). Denying corps. the write to advertise elections presupposes precisely Thurgood Marshall’s assumption–on the basis of a quote that began this thread–that took for granted that corporations are an agency of political corruption. To make law on the assumption that certain segments of the Amreican population are apriori wrongdoers goes to the heart of what the history of attander jurisprudence says you can’t do.

Other examples equally not acted on: the “Violence Against Women” Act which is a prima facie violation of the 1st Amendment protection against bills of attainder. How so? Merely to mention a “victim” group in the context of legislation that in its details cites heterosexual males as the “perps” to be controlled by the legislation finds the latter guilty before-the-fact.

Can’t do that, people.

Coming from another direction: I’m amused by the liberal counter argument that all but explicitly asserts the following: “the American electorate is a bunch of stupid illiterates, and will vote for whomever’s campaign has the largest amount of money to buy the largest among of media exposure.”

Maybe as re: people who vote liberal, they’re right. I didn’t say that.