Justice Alito Doggedly Holds Onto Logic Of The Past, Elites

Justice Alito just hasn't changed on Citizens United.

onJuly 21, 2015 at 11:27 AM

In the cases that we’ve had that I think involve core free speech, the chief example that I would give from my time on the court is the Citizens United case. The court came out five to four, protecting the right to freedom of speech, but it was five to four. And it remains very controversial. My former colleague John Paul Stevens has written a book recommending a number of constitutional amendments to correct the decisions he really disagreed with during his time on the court and that’s one of them. He wants an amendment to the First Amendment, which is pretty remarkable, to overrule the decision in Citizens United. Citizens United, I think, is core political speech. It is a video about a candidate for the presidency of the United States. If that’s not protected by First Amendment free speech, by the First Amendment free speech guarantee, I don’t know what is.

— Justice Samuel Alito, in an interview with Bill Kristol, demonstrating he hasn’t changed much since he interrupted President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address in defense of the Citizens United decision with his impromptu surrebuttal. Alito remains woefully out of touch on the issue, but it is fun to see such dogged faith in the thing he did five years ago despite all evidence to the contrary.