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Alpha Stage
A Supreme Court Decision
January 22, 2010
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The New York Times is running an article entitled, "Lobbyists Get
Potent Weapon in Campaign Finance Ruling." The article begins,
"The Supreme Court has handed lobbyists a new weapon. A
lobbyist can now tell any elected official: if you vote wrong, my
company, labor union or interest group will spend unlimited sums
explicitly advertising against your re-election." It continues, "'We
have got a million we can spend advertising for you or against you
— whichever one you want,’ a lobbyist can tell lawmakers, said
Lawrence M. Noble, a lawyer at Skadden Arps in Washington and
former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission."

Read the Article!!

Questions for Discussion:

1. Do you think that corporations should be allowed to spend
unlimited amounts of money to support political candidates? Why or
why not? Try and argue both sides of this question.

2. Imagine that you were a United States Congressman who did not
want to be beholden to large corporations and lobbyists. What plan
might you develop to ensure your re-election despite these powerful
campaign funders?

3. Imagine that you were a board member of a powerful
corporation. What three "business-smart" reasons might you have
for not supporting corporate contributions to political campaigns?

4. Do you think that the Supreme Court of the United States should
have the ability to overturn precedent decided by former supreme
courts? Why or why not? Should this power be limited? If so,
how? (Remember, in 1954 when the Supreme Court ruled that
segregated schools were inherently unequal they overturned a
previous decision.)

Questions for Younger Children and Everybody Else:

1. Describe a time in which you had to make a difficult decision?
What did you decide? Why was this decision difficult?

2. What do you think are the most important things for a judge, or a
sports referee or umpire, to keep in mind when they are doing their
job? Why?

3. If you could tell people not to do one thing that many people do
today, what would you tell them not to do? Why?
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