The House of Representatives rejected an amendment last night that would have required that sponsors of independent political expenditure television and radio ads disclose the identity of donors whose contribute $10,000 or more to their efforts. The amendment to a Federal Communications Commission reform bill, offered by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), was defeated on a mostly party-line vote of 179 for to 238 against.

Eshoo explained the need for the amendment:

All Americans have a right to honest information about who has paid for the political messages they receive. This includes the sponsors of political advertisements—not just the names of sham entities designed to evade disclosure.

Americans are besieged by anonymous campaign ads around the clock this year. With disclosure and transparency, the public will be able to decide for themselves, because relevant information about the interests and their impact will be public. Disclosure of an ad’s major donors does not place any undue burdens on speech or industry. It will empower the voters.

Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, objected to the proposal complaining that it might have unintended consequences for public broadcasting sponsors and offered the bizarre justification that it would not require enough disclosure for elected officials. He lamented that the $10,000 threshold would mean voters would only see “a tiny little window” into who backed members of Congress (who are already subject to much stricter disclosure requirements under election law) and might be evaded by outside committees.

Five Republicans voted in favor of disclosure. They were:

Rep. Joe Barton (TX)

Rep. Walter Jones (NC)

Rep. Don Manzullo (IL)

Rep. Todd Russell Platts (PA)

Rep. CW Bill Young (FL)

Eight Democrats opposed the measure:

Rep. John Barrow (GA)

Rep. Dan Boren (OK)

Rep. Dennis Cardoza (CA)

Rep. Jim Cooper (TN)

Rep. Kathy Hochul (NY)

Rep. Collin Peterson (MN)

Rep. Kurt Schrader (OR)

Rep. Heath Shuler (NC)

All of the Democratic opponents except Hochul are members of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition, a group historically supportive of campaign finance reform. Reps. Cardoza, Cooper, Schrader, and Shuler all voted for the DISCLOSE Act in 2010, a measure which contained similar disclosure requirements, among other provisions.

Joe Oliver has inserted himself into the debate surrounding the murder of Trayvon Martin, making himself the public face of the defense of shooter George Zimmerman. Oliver, a former TV news anchor, has made dozens of media appearances in the past week to defend his “friend” Zimmerman’s character, dismiss allegations of racism, and note that the shooter has suffered himself from the public outcry.

Many have wondered why Oliver has stepped up, as his connection to Zimmerman is a bit murky, and as even he said on MSNBC last night, “my role in this just doesn’t make any sense.” The interview, with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and New York Times columnist Charles Blow, was tense and raised questions that Oliver didn’t seem comfortably answering.

But since he’s made himself a central figure in this ongoing controversy, it’s worth asking what we know about Joe Oliver:

1. Oliver first appeared this weekend and became a go-to guest for TV bookers literally overnight. Sitting out the controversy until Sunday, Oliver made the rounds of local TV news outlets that day and got a single mention on MSNBC, according to a search of media monitoring software. By Monday, he was everywhere, mentioned over 200 times and appearing on national cable news.

2. Oliver has been cagey about the apparent fact that the he and Zimmerman worked together. Zimmerman worked at a firm called Digital Risk, the company confirmed , and Oliver’s Linkedin page (which matches his known past employment) shows that he too worked at Digital Risk, during the same time period. A spokesperson for the company would not confirm the connection. But asked last night if they had “been in the same workplace,” Oliver cryptically replied, “I’m sure that information is out there, I know where he worked.” When O’Donnell said he had information that they worked together, Oliver replied, “If you’ve come across that information, then you have come across that information.”

3. Oliver initially said he was a good friend of Zimmerman’s, but told O’Donnell last night that they were merely “acquaintances.” He also said he had only briefly spoken to Zimmerman since Martin’s death, and only spoke to Zimmerman’s attorney this weekend, who apparently endorsed Oliver’s quest. He said he’s known Zimmerman for six years through the shooter’s mother-in-law, saying the two first met when Zimmerman started dating his now-wife.

4. Oliver has said he was unaware of Zimmerman’s past run-ins with the law, or that Zimmerman had gone through anger-management classes. Nor could he recognize Zimmerman’s voice from 911 calls, he’s said.

5. Oliver has offered bizarre defenses of Zimmerman, brushing off his alleged use of the racial slur “[expletive] coon” by saying that he actually said “goon” — “a term of endearment” — or alternately, that “coon” is not even a bad word.

Last night, Oliver said explicitly that his is not being paid, but it’s a bit unclear why he chose to insert himself. In another contentious interview with MSNBC this morning, Oliver said he inserted himself into the controversy, “Because I’m an African-American male and I understand the outrage.” “I understand enough about George to put myself in the crossfire,” he said. “I’m putting my own life on the line here.”

Indeed, while some critics have said O’Donnell and Blow “should be ashamed” of themselves for challenging Oliver, the man threw himself into a national political controversy knowing full well the dangers inherent with it — and no reason apparent at the moment.

It is probably not the case that the Supreme Court is poised to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act if it finds just one provision of it unconstitutional. Among other things, after conservative superlawyer Paul Clement spent nearly twenty minutes trying to convince a skeptical panel of judges that the whole law must fall, his conservative ally Justice Alito asked Clement a question no advocate ever wants to hear: “What would your fallback position be if we don’t accept the proposition that if the mandate is declared unconstitutional” the entire statute must fall? Apparently, even the Supreme Court’s right flank was considering other options besides Clement’s overreaching theory.

Unfortunately, however, the justices gave his proposal far more credit than it actually deserves. Under longstanding law, a court may not invalidate any constitutional part of a law unless it is “evident” that Congress would have preferred no law to some law. Yet the justices peppered the law’s defenders with uncertain questions about how they should proceed — with Scalia finally outright saying he would simply eliminate President Obama’s signature accomplishment altogether. Every single one of these questions were inappropriate. Given the exceedingly high presumption in favor of retaining as much of the law as possible, the justices must resolve any of their uncertainties in favor of the Affordable Care Act.

The Court’s conservatives did not get this. Worse, Justice Kennedy at one point seemed to suggest the Court’s duty was to resolve any uncertainties in favor of the insurance industry:

When you say judicial restraint, you are echoing the earlier premise that it increases the judicial power if the judiciary strikes down other provisions of the Act. I suggest to you it might be quite the opposite. We would be exercising the judicial power if one Act was — one provision was stricken and the others remained to impose a risk on insurance companies that Congress had never intended.

To be fair, it is not entirely clear how Kennedy’s fears cut, and as Lyle Denniston suggests, they could ultimately wind up saving the law. If Kennedy is genuinely concerned that any decision striking down the individual mandate will risk nuking the insurance industry, he could ultimately conclude that the least worst outcome is simply to uphold the entire law. Indeed, the problems created by trying to remove just one provision from a comprehensive economic regulatory scheme demonstrate the wisdom of a decision Kennedy previously joined saying that the justices should not generally be in the business of doing so.

If they ultimately decide to throw out the entire law, however, the result will be bedlam. Much of the Affordable Care Act has already taken effect, and cannot simply be stopped on a dime tomorrow:

• Stripping Young People of Care: At least 2.5 million young people now have insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. All of them would be cast back into the wilderness if the whole law were struck down.
• Blowing Up Medicare: Approximately 100 million Medicare claims are processed each month using a formula that was altered by the Affordable Care Act. If the entire law were struck down, new rates could not be calculated under the old, pre-ACA formula until after a rulemaking process that can take months before is completed. The result would be massive delays in payments to health providers throughout the country.
• Pulling The Rug Out On Retirees: The Affordable Care Act also provides thousands of Americans the opportunity to retire early and still remain insured until they become eligible for Medicare. Striking down the entire law could yank insurance away from many near-elderly Americans who retired solely because of the promise that the Affordable Care Act would be there for them.
• Ungrateful States: Many of the states that are currently challenging the law have nonetheless accepted millions of dollars worth of grants under the Affordable Care Act. If the law is struck down, it’s likely that this money would need to be returned immediately, further stressing already tight state budgets.

Simply put, today should have taught the justices a lesson. There is a reason why the Constitution leaves difficult questions of economic policy to elected officials and not to unelected judges. These choices are difficult, they are not easily unwound and they should be made by someone who actually has a mandate from the people to make them.

Last May, Florida radically overhauled its election law. In the name of preventing voter fraud, the bill slashed the early voting period nearly in half, shifted many voters to provisional ballots which often are never counted, and invalidated absentee ballots if the voter’s signature did not match official records.

Now, according to the New York Times, the law is already having an impact on voter registration, with the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote curtailing their efforts in the state. The law also requires third-party groups like those to submit registration cards within 48 hours of signature or pay a fine. Sabu Williams, the head of a local branch of the NAACP, experienced that part of the law firsthand during the past Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend:

Mr. Williams’s group registered two voters on the Sunday of the three-day weekend, and noted the time, as required by the law: 2:15 p.m. and 2:20 p.m. When the local elections office reopened on Tuesday, Jan. 17, the group handed the forms in. They were stamped as received at 3:53 p.m.

This resulted in a warning letter from Florida’s Secretary of State, Kurt S. Browning, who noted that the state can levy fines of $50 for each late application, with an annual cap of $1,000 in fines per group. “In your case, although the supervisor’s office was closed on Monday, Jan. 16, the 48-hour period ended for the two applications on Jan. 17 at 2:15 p.m. and 2:20 p.m.; therefore, the applications were untimely under the law,” Mr. Browning wrote. The letter said that “any future violation of the third-party voter registration law may result in my referral of the matter to the attorney general for an enforcement action.”

Mr. Williams said he could not believe it. “We’re out here trying to register voters, and I’m being threatened for doing it because we missed the time limit by around an hour — and we’re doing it on the first business day they were open!” he said. But he vowed to continue registering voters.

Not everyone, however, will follow suit. The League of Women Voters announced last year that it would halt its efforts in Florida if the bill became law, claiming an “undue burden on groups such as ours that work to register voters.” Heather Smith, Rock the Vote’s president, told the Times that, since high school teachers could be subject to fines under the law, “We just cannot put those high school teachers at risk.” While Gov. Rick Scott (R) said that he was only concerned whether the law “increase[d] the chance for people to stay active,” it is becoming obvious that this bill does the exact opposite.

Since parts of Florida are covered under the Voting Rights Act, the Department of Justice announced earlier this month that it would file a challenge to the law.

-Zachary Bernstein

The Miami Herald reports that the Sanford Police Department, at the conclusion of its Trayvon Martin investigation, recommended that the prosecutor file charges against the shooter George Zimmerman. Angela Corey, the special prosecutor now assigned to the case, confirmed the report:

“As far as the process I can tell you that the police went to the state attorney with a capias request, meaning: ‘We’re through with our investigation and here it is for you.’ The state attorney impaneled a grand jury, but before anything else could be done, the governor stepped in and asked us to pick it up in mid-stream.”

A capias is a request for charges to be filed.

State Attorney Norman R. Wolfinger, who was initially assigned the Trayvon Martin case, failed to act on the recommendation for charges against Zimmerman.

This new information directly contradicts the public statements that Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee (who has now “temporarily” stepped down) made on March 12, the day he turned the case over to the state attorney. He claimed that, at the time, there was not enough evidence to charge Zimmerman with a crime and arrest him:

Police Chief Bill Lee said there was not enough evidence to arrest George Zimmerman, who followed Martin in his SUV and ended up confronting the teen before shots were fired.

“In this case Mr. Zimmerman has made the statement of self-defense,” Lee said. “Until we can establish probable cause to dispute that, we don’t have the grounds to arrest him.”

These statements now do not appear to reflect the actual views of the Sanford Police, as communicated to the prosecutor. It only adds to the serious questions about the conduct of Lee and other members of the Sanford police in this case. While Lee was in charge of the Sanford Police, they did not test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol, “corrected” a key witness, and amended the police report to bolster Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has made it clear he wants to push for a GOP-backed DREAM Act that would give undocumented students legal status — but not citizenship — and now Republicans hope to use this watered-down version of the bill to win support from Latino voters. Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) are also working on a bill like this, which is being kept under wraps and is expected to be unveiled if or when Mitt Romney wins the GOP presidential nomination.

Rubio told The Hill that he has nothing to announce about a non-citizenship DREAM Act, but said, “We’re working toward that and hopefully very soon.” While Rubio, Kyl, and Hutchinson are supposedly prepping a Republican plan, it’s worth noting that the original DREAM Act — to provide citizenship to undocumented students if they meet certain requirements — was a bipartisan plan that had support from GOP Sens. Orrin Hatch (UT) and John McCain (AZ).

Now if Rubio introduces the legal-status-only plan, it will likely be little more than posturing and doubtful to make it far because Republicans like Rep. Lamar Smith (TX), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, are categorically opposed to the DREAM Act and it is doubtful Democrats would support creating a permanent underclass of immigrants. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pointed out that Republicans have already opposed this measure too, which would impose a class system for immigrants:

At an event on Capitol Hill, Reid cautioned that if Republicans offer a new DREAM Act, it will be a watered-down version of the bill most Republicans opposed when it came up for a vote last year. [...]

[G]roups that advocate for immigrants are skeptical of reforms that fail to grant a path to citizenship.

“Any proposal that is put on the table as to the fate of these children, who are in all consideration American, should be measured by what place they’re going to have in our society,” said Clarissa Martinez, director of immigration at the National Council of La Raza.

Martinez said creating “a class of nation-less people” would not be good for the country.

Earlier this month in an interview with Geraldo Rivera, Rubio teetered between his opposition to the current DREAM Act, which would provide citizenship, and trying to lay out a plan that would appeal to Latinos. “You can legalize someone’s status in this country with a significant amount of certainty about their future without placing them on a path toward citizenship,” he argued.

But his plan would force potentially millions of undocumented students to become non-voting residents of their home country if they were only given legal status in the U.S. After the extremely anti-immigrant views that the Republican presidential candidates have staked out during the primaries, a plan to create a system of second-class citizenship is not likely to be what Latino voters are looking for from the Republican party.

In a panel yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) called the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling “a combination of arrogance, naivete, and stupidity, the likes of which I have never seen.” And he predicted scandals would come from the combination of unlimited corporate contributions and lack of disclosure for many independent expenditures:

McCain: I promise you this. I promise you there will be huge scandals… because there’s too much money washing around, too much of it… we don’t know who, who contributed it, and there is too much corruption associated with that kind of money. There will be major scandals.
Moderator: John McCain never gives up. That’s the legend. Are you gonna give up on this?
McCain: No. But I’ve got to wait until we think that can pass legislation. And I’m not sure right now, frankly, that we could get it passed.

Watch the video:

With a Republican House largely unconcerned about the issue and a Republican minority able to block legislation through filibuster, McCain is probably correct in his assessment of the prospects of a legislative fix in the current Congress.

But McCain deserves a large share of the blame for the secret money in our political system.

In 2010, after the high court ruled, McCain declared campaign finance reform dead and essentially washed his hands of the cause, telling CBS’s Bob Schieffer, “I don’t think there’s much that can be done.”

Without McCain’s help, Democrats created the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act. The bill — which sought to ban campaign expenditures by foreign-owned corporations and to require disclosure of the true sources of the money behind independent expenditures and electioneering communications — passed the House in June of 2010.

When the bill came to the Senate, McCain refused to back the measure. Decrying provisions in it as “a bailout for the unions,” McCain attacked the bill as tougher on corporations than unions.

On September 24, Democratic efforts to end a Republican filibuster of the measure failed by a single vote. All 59 Senate Democrats voted to end debate, McCain voted no. Rather than offering amendments to the bill or working behind the scenes with sponsors to reach an agreement, McCain was the deciding vote to kill the bill without even allowing an up-or-down vote.

Perhaps he feared a tough 2010 primary, but when there was a chance to do something about disclosure, McCain opted to stand with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and the Chamber of Commerce rather than Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and the campaign finance reform movement. He has not even co-sponsored the disclosure-only DISCLOSE Act of 2012 introduced last week.

McCain’s grumbling comes as too little, too late and should be seen as what it is — little more than grandstanding.

ThinkProgress intern Zach Bernstein contributed to this report.

A conservative group in Tennessee is pushing the state legislature to pass a xenophobic bill that would place limits on the number of foreigners that the state’s charter schools can hire, in a thinly veiled attack on the Muslim community.

The Putting Tennessee First Act says that the state’s chartering authority may not approve schools where more than 3.5 percent of their staff is made up of immigrants, even if they are legal residents of the United States.

The Tennessean has more:

The Tennessee Eagle Forum, which drafted the bill, is affiliated with the Eagle Forum, a national organization that wants to reduce the number of visas available to foreign-born workers and opposes the use of textbooks that it sees as favorable to Islam.

The Eagle Forum is a national group run by anti-Equal Rights Amendment activist Phyllis Schlafly, who has called feminism the most “destructive force in our society today.” The state group has tried — and failed — to pass discriminatory laws in the past. Last year, they authored the Material Support to Designated Entities Act, which would have labeled some Muslims terrorists if they were found to be practicing Sharia Law in the state. The bill failed after civil rights groups loudly objected.

Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Bill Kentron is a sponsor of the bill, and he has thus far denied that religion played any part in his decision to support the bill. But another Republican, Sen. Jim Summerville, told the Tennessean that he believes the bill’s supporters are concerned with Islamist groups infiltrating charter schools.

Some of the most vocal opposition to the bill is coming from other Republicans in Tennessee. Sen. Stacey Campfield said that he has no problem with foreigners teaching in schools if they’re here legally. And others have said that the limitations on whom schools can hire will hurt students.

The Constitution’s words enabling Congress to “regulate commerce…among the several states” gives the United States broad authority over economic matters — although non-economic regulation is far more suspect. Early in today’s argument, however, several of the justices appeared poised to impose an entirely novel limit on Congress’ authority — suggesting that laws which require, in Justice Kennedy’s words, an “affirmative duty to act to go into commerce” is somehow constitutionally suspect. So there were no shortages of pointed questions about the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that everyone either carry health insurance or pay slightly more income taxes.

There are two reasons why this requirement is necessary. The first is that, because the law prohibits insurers from denying coverage to patients with preexisting conditions, it must also ensure that healthy people enter the insurance market before they become sick. If patients can wait until they get sick to buy insurance, they will drain all the money out of an insurance plan that they have not previously paid into, leaving nothing left for the rest of the plan’s consumers. The second reason relates to a problem with our health system that long predates the Affordable Care Act. Because emergency rooms must provide at least some degree of care free of charge to people who cannot afford it, these costs wind up being transferred to persons with insurance — driving up annual premiums as much as $1,100 on the average patient.

Initially, the Court’s conservatives appeared highly credulous of the plaintiffs’ false claim that upholding the health reform would necessarily enable the federal government to do absolutely anything. Solicitor General Don Verrilli addressed this question by explaining that the health care market is unique in that it is the only market that everyone inevitably participates in — we all get sick at some point — and that, because of health care’s sudden and unexpected costs, people typically pay their health bills through insurance. Thus, he explained, because everyone is already caught up in the health care market, the Affordable Care Act does not impose any kind of “duty…to go into commerce” — it merely tells people who are already in the health care market to make sure they pay for their health costs through insurance.

While Verrilli was still at the podium, the Court’s conservatives did not seem to buy this claim. A ray of hope emerged at the end of the oral argument, however, when Justice Kennedy expressed a somewhat nuanced view:

[T]he government tells us that’s because the insurance market is unique. And in the next case, it’ll say the next market is unique. But I think it is true that if most questions in life are matters of degree, in the insurance and health care world, both markets — stipulate two markets — the young person who is uninsured is uniquely proximately very close to affecting the rates of insurance and the costs of providing medical care in a way that is not true in other industries. That’s my concern in the case.

There’s a lot going on in this statement. On the one hand, Kennedy is clearly skeptical that, if the Court says this market is unique, the government won’t simply argue that the next market is also unique in the next case. On the other hand, Kennedy also appears sympathetic to the second reason why the mandate is essential — that the problem of uninsurance leads to billions in health care costs being transferred to other health care consumers. A young person who forgoes health insurance is “uniquely proximately very close” to affecting the health care costs of others, and that may be enough to get Kennedy’s vote to uphold the law.

The big loser in all of this debate, however, is the Constitution itself. The Constitution says nothing about unique markets. Or about the need to impose artificial Congress authority to regulate the nation’s economy. It simply says that Congress can “regulate commerce.” The idea that a law which regulates 1/6 of the nation’s economy is not regulating commerce is, frankly, absurd. Nor was there ever any risk that a decision upholding health reform would lead to all things being permissible. There are many things that are not commercial — federal murder laws, assault laws, child neglect laws or sexual morality laws, for example. A law regulating our entire national health care market, however, is clearly and obviously constitutional.

Justice Kennedy may inevitably vote to uphold the law — he may even bring Chief Justice Roberts along with him — but, whatever the Court does this term, it appears increasingly likely that we live under the constitution of Anthony Kennedy, and that we no longer live under the Constitution of the United States.

Newly released FBI documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, suggest that the bureau illegally spied on the religious practices of Muslim Americans, under the guise of community outreach. An FBI spokesman defended the information gathering as “within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity, whether investigation or liaison, including activities designed to strengthen relationships in various communities.”

The ACLU explains:

The FBI’s targeting of American Muslim religious organizations for secret intelligence gathering raises grave constitutional concerns because it is an affront to religious liberty and equal protection of the law. The bureau’s use of outreach meetings to gather intelligence also undermines the trust and mutual understanding necessary to effective law enforcement. Additionally, the FBI’s retention of information gathered through “mosque outreach” in its intelligence files violates federal Privacy Act prohibitions against the maintenance of records about individuals’ First Amendment-protected activity.

But this would hardly be the first time the FBI spied on peaceful Americans.

Here are just a few recent examples:

Iraq War Opponents — A 2002 FBI memo showed the bureau investigated gatherings of the Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice, as the pacifist group leafleted against the Iraq War.

Environmentalists — The FBI improperly investigated two planned Greenpeace corporate protests, a three-year inquiry extending long after the protests were over.

Animal Rights Supporters — The bureau also improperly investigated People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

This intelligence, while not useful for public safety, was at least better than the virtual restaurant reviews gathered by the New York Police Department’s spying operation.

A 2010 Inspector General’s report lambasted the FBI for equating nonviolent protests with terrorism and for “false and misleading statements to the public and to Congress.”

Of course, these groups are in good company. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself was spied on regularly by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. The COINTELPRO investigations into whether the civil rights leader might be a Communist including tapped phone conversations, bugs at his house, and even a 1964 infamous poison-pen letter warning him he would be exposed as a fraud.

But nearly 50 years later, it seems perhaps the FBI should have learned from its mistakes.

After the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in the Citizens United v. FEC that corporations could spend unlimited funds from their corporate treasuries on independent political expenditures, some in Congress sought to give shareholders a say in deciding what what expenditures to make. While the Shareholder Protection Act of 2010, a bill by Rep. Mike Capuano (D-MA) to give corporate shareholders the right to vote on political expenditures, was endorsed by the House Financial Services Committee, it never came up for a vote on the House floor. Now, with Republicans in the majority in the House and able to filibuster any reform efforts in the Senate, some reformers have turned their focus to state legislatures.

A Connecticut legislative committee is currently considering a bill that could put the Nutmeg State at the forefront on the issue. A provision of House Bill 5528 would require a shareholder majority approve political spending. The bill would require:

Notwithstanding any provision of the general statutes, for corporations incorporated in this state, shareholders shall annually authorize a political activities budget for the corporation by a majority of votes representing all outstanding shares. For corporations not incorporated in this state, but registered to do business in the state or with shareholders residing in the state, shareholders in the state shall authorize spending related to the state’s elections. Fiduciaries voting on behalf of investors shall disclose such vote to investors.

Another provision in the draft bill would require that the corporations’ boards of directors approve each expenditure over $10,000.

The Connecticut Business & Industry Association, predictably, has opposed these rules, calling them “an intrusion into a corporation’s constitutionally protected right to free speech” and warning that the “regulatory hurdles” of allowing the people who actually own a corporation to have a say in the political speech of that business would “will not make Connecticut appealing as a place to do business.”

But as Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor at Stetson University College of Law and an expert on election law, noted in her committee testimony, “though the Supreme Court majority in Citizens United conceptualized corporations as collections of individuals with joint First Amendment rights, it is unclear how shareholders can voice their opinions collectively without a consent process.” By passing this bill, she says, “Connecticut can be the mouse that roars, exhibiting national leadership in this post-Citizens United America.”

If corporate political expenditures are really about protecting free speech, as the 5-4 Supreme Court majority said, measures like this could make sure that the people who actually make up the corporation are the ones deciding whether to speak, how much to speak, and what to say.

A proposed bill under consideration in the Georgia legislature to prevent all undocumented immigrants from attending state institutions of higher learning also contains provisions which could prevent them from even obtaining marriage licenses and water and sewage service.

The legislation, sponsored by Georgia Sen. Barry Loudermilk (R), would remove foreign passports from the list of valid identification documents for state agencies — unless they were accompanied by federal immigration documentation.

An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union attacked the bill, noting that the U.S. Transportation and Security Administration consider passports “a very secure form of ID.”

Who is Loudermilk? His campaign website brands him as “a strong conservative leader” and highlights his view that the “ever increasing number of illegal aliens entering Georgia” should “be treated as any other criminal.”

But most telling is an extremely anti-immigrant newspaper op/ed he wrote more than a decade ago, titled “This is America. Like it or leave it.” It said:

First of all, it is not our responsibility to continually try not to offend you in any way. This idea of America being a multi-cultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Americans, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language, and our own lifestyle. This culture, called the “American Way” has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom. Our forefathers fought, bled, and died at places such as Bunker Hill, Antietam, San Juan Hill, Iwo Jima, Normandy, Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf, for our way of life.

We speak English, not Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn our language.

Read more

Welcome to Justiceline, ThinkProgress Justice’s morning round-up of the latest legal news and developments. Remember to follow us on Twitter at @TPJustice.

• During day one of the U.S. Supreme Court hearings on the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality, observers say justices seemed unswayed by arguments that that case was not yet ripe for consideration.
• Today, the hearings will move to the question of the constitutionality of the individual mandate provisions of the ObamaCare law.
• The Supreme Court also refused to hear an appeal by tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds of a $28.3 million verdict for a Florida widow whose husband died of lung cancer.
• Pennsylvania State Sen. Jane Orie (R) was been convicted on 14 counts of corruption and the former majority whip will now have to resign her seat.
• The conviction of former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) was upheld by a three-judge panel from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The judges unanimously affirmed 11 of the 12 guilty counts against him.
• The Senate Rules and Administration Committee will hold its first hearing on the new DISCLOSE Act of 2012 on Thursday.

Over the last 48 hours, there has been a sustained effort to smear Trayvon Martin, the 17-year old African-American who was shot dead by George Zimmerman a month ago. Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, said, “They killed my son, now they’re trying to kill his reputation.”

Thus far these attacks have fallen into two categories: false and irrelevant. Much of this leaked information seems intended to play into stereotypes about young African-American males. Here’s what everyone should know:

1. Prominent conservative websites published fake photos of Martin. Twitchy, a new website run by prominent conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, promoted a photo — purportedly from Martin’s Facebook page — that shows Martin in saggy pants and flipping the bird. The photo, which spread quickly on conservative websites and Twitter, is intended to paint Martin as a thug. As Twitchy later acknowledged, it is not a photo of Trayvon Martin. [Examiner]

2. The Sanford Police selectively leaked irrelevant, negative information about Martin. The authorities told the Orlando Sentinel this morning that Trayvon was suspended from school for ten days “after being found with an empty marijuana baggie.” There is no evidence that Martin was under the influence of drugs at the time of his death, nor would prior possession of marijuana be a reason for killing him. It’s unclear what the relevance of the leak was, other than to smear Martin. [Orlando Sentinel]

3. On Fox News, Geraldo said that Martin was dressed “like a wannabe gangster.” Bill O’Reilly agreed with him. The sole evidence is that Martin was wearing a hoodie. Geraldo added that “everyone that ever stuck up a convenience store” was wearing a hoodie. [ThinkProgress; The Blaze]

4. Without any evidence, prominent right-wing bloggers suggested that Martin was a drug dealer. Right-wing blogger Dan Riehl advances the theory, also advanced in a widely linked peice on a site called Wagist. There does not appear to be any evidence to support this claim whatsoever. [Riehl World View]

5. Without any evidence, a right-wing columnist alleged that Martin assaulted a bus driver. Unlike Zimmerman, Trayvon has no documented history of violence. This allegation continues to be advanced by a blogger on the Examiner even after the real reason was leaked to the police and confirmed by the family. [Miami Herald; Examiner]

6. Zimmerman’s friend says Martin was to blame because he was disrespectful to Zimmerman. Zimmerman’s friend Joe Oliver said that Martin would not have been shot to death if Trayvon had just said “I’m staying with my parents.” Of course, Zimmerman was not a police officer, and Trayvon had no duty to tell him who he was or where he was going. [NBC News]

The final part of the effort to smear Trayvon Martin is to link him and his supporters to irresponsible fringe groups like the New Black Panthers and marginal provocateurs like Louis Farrakhan. Threats by these groups are serious and should be investigated, but they have nothing to do with Martin or his supporters. The leader of the effort to associate Martin with these groups is Matt Drudge. You can see how he is framing the story today here.

Ultimately, whether Martin was a perfect person is irrelevant to whether Zimmerman’s conduct that night was justified. Clearly, there are two different versions of the events that transpired on February 26, the night Trayvon was killed. There are conflicting statements by witnesses and conflicting evidence as to who was the aggressor. Zimmerman has the right to tell his side of the story. But his opportunity to do this will come in a court of law after he is charged and arrested. In the meantime, Zimmerman’s supporters should stop trying to smear the reputation of a dead, 17-year-old boy.