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Floyd Abrams weighs in on the Disney controversy and corporate speech ā€” FAN 338.2

"The entrance of Disney into the fray of advocacy about public policy issues illustrates the pro-First Amendment nature of such conduct and why it should be constitutionally supported and not limited."
Floyd Abrams

Floyd Abrams

What follows is an outgrowth of a commentary authored by Robert Corn-Revere (ā€œPunishing Disney for Opposing Floridaā€™s ā€˜Donā€™t Say Gayā€™ Law poses Serious First Amendment Problemsā€). That commentary triggered the following responses:

In this issue, offers his views on the above matters. Then on Monday, Mr. Glasser returns with yet another volley in this exchange.  


Two aspects of the Neuborne-Chemerinsky offerings seem to be of special interest ā€” one relating to what they said and the other to what they did not.

The first is startling. A dozen years after the Citizens United opinion was issued, these two distinguished and justly admired scholars who have repeatedly criticized the ruling through the years now acknowledge that, after all, given the ā€œfactsā€ of the case, the Court was correct to rule in Citizens Unitedā€™s favor. Hola!

The second is that they wisely make no effort to support the hyperbolic response to the decision of so many of our usually better-grounded publications. The Washington Post's response to the ruling was that ā€œcorporate money, never lacking in the American political process, may now overwhelm . . . the contributions of individualsā€ ā€” precisely the opposite has occurred. That of The New York Times was that the would be ā€œto thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th centuryā€ ā€” nothing of the sort has occurred. So far as I can tell, there have been no apologies.

I donā€™t disagree that nonprofit entities such as the ACLU and Citizens United play a different role in our society than for-profit ones. But the entrance of Disney into the fray of advocacy about public policy issues illustrates the pro-First Amendment nature of such conduct and why it should be constitutionally supported and not limited.

Full disclosure: Mr. Abrams  Senator Mitch McConnell in the Citizens United case and participated in oral argument in the case.

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