Bilski: business as usual [LWN.net]

Bilski: business as usual

Posted Jun 29, 2010 1:48 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: Bilski: business as usual by modernjazz
Parent article: Bilski: business as usual

What one person calls "campaign finance reform" another person calls "a infringement on the freedom of speech, which is expressly and specifically forbidden by the constitution"... ESPECIALLY when it comes to politics.

to post comments

Bilski: business as usual

Posted Jun 29, 2010 15:18 UTC (Tue) by modernjazz (guest, #4185) [Link]

The point was not whether you agree with the decision in Citizens United; I agree it's a very delicate issue, but in any case debate over the merits or demerits of that decision is not really relevant for LWN.

The point of my comment was merely whether this supreme court rules narrowly, as stated in the quote I excerpted from the original article. No one would call Citizens United (as one example) a narrow ruling: had they wanted to rule narrowly, they could have done essentially the same thing they did in the Bilski case. But they chose not to, and notably it was a 5-4 decision, not the 9-0 or 7-2 that characterizes many previous "expansive" rulings.

So, while Roberts _said_ when he was appointed that he wasn't interested in expansive rulings, the actual decisions have sometimes proven otherwise. (Not that there haven't been some narrow rulings, too; it has been a mix.) My post was merely clarifying that there is often a gap between what someone says they want and what actually ends up happening in reality.