Justices hear case about anti-Clinton movie

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices gave mixed reviews Tuesday to efforts to regulate “Hillary: The Movie,” as they considered a case that will shape future election campaigns.

Everyone agrees the 90-minute film is vehemently anti-Hillary Clinton. The justices disagree on whether it’s tantamount to a political ad that can be regulated, or a documentary that enjoys full free-speech protection.

“I saw it,” Justice Stephen Breyer said. “It’s not a musical comedy.”

The hourlong oral argument Monday in the case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, left certain only one thing: The Supreme Court will produce another sharply fractured decision guiding future campaign finance rules.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Stephen Breyer suggested that they consider the film the kind of campaign advocacy that’s subject to reasonable regulation. By contrast, Chief Justice John G. Roberts and justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito cast the campaign-finance regulations as an infringement on the First Amendment.

Justice Alito in particular drilled home the point that campaign books might be banned next if the Obama administration prevails in the argument that campaign-finance restrictions extend to a lengthy documentary film.

“That’s pretty incredible,” Justice Alito said, to say that “if a campaign biography was published, that could be banned.”

A conservative group called Citizens United produced “Hillary: The Movie” and released it in January 2008. Featuring conservative commentators such as Robert Novak and Ann Coulter, the movie repeatedly describes Clinton with words such as cunning, ruthless, deceitful and Machiavellian.

At the time of the film’s release, Clinton was a New York senator in the midst of the Democratic presidential primary, which she eventually lost to Barack Obama. Now secretary of state, she was at the time considered the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“This documentary is the very definition of the robust, uninhibited debate ... that the First Amendment is there to guarantee,” said Theodore Olson, a former Bush administration solicitor general who represents Citizens United.

Corporations and labor unions long have been banned from directly funding political campaigns, although they can establish political action committees. A 2002 campaign-finance law extended the restrictions to cover ads that seek to sway voters without explicitly calling for a particular vote.

The 2002 law blocks corporations and labor unions from funding such “electioneering communications” within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election. Individual contributors also must be disclosed.