I knew I was right about John Roberts

A lot of people are going to be bemoaning the Supreme Court ruling from yesterday. A lot of people are going to be excited about it. On the surface, it's a victory for the right and for big money in politics... However, if you read the official slip opinion, it becomes clear that this was a highly fragmented court. In fact, this sums it up pretty well:

"ROBERTS, C. J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, in which SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respectto Parts III and IV, in which ALITO, J., joined. ALITO, J., filed a concurring opinion. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which KENNEDY and THOMAS, JJ., joined. SOUTER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined."

That's a pretty fragmented opinion to read and it is highly unusual to have 4 different opinions (majority, concurring, partially concurring and dissenting) filed.

What makes me happy is that Roberts (and to a lesser extent Alito) drifted away from Thomas and Scalia to craft a narrow opinion related to this specific case. Where Scalia and Thomas wanted to eviscerate McCain-Feingold, Alito and Roberts instead took the rational approach which can be expressed thusly:

There's no issue of overbreadth with regards to the law. However, in this case, the FEC too broadly applied the rules and censered an ad that was clearly NOT the functional equivalent of express campaign speech.

This is exactly what I thought when I read the original transcript and I'm glad to see Roberts go largely alone in crafting his majority decision.

A bit frightening is that three (Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy) justices apparently continue to believe that the government should not be permitted to regulate speech by corporations or unions (of which PACs qualify). I continue to maintain that free speech is a right of individuals and not a right of entities that are blessed by the government with favorable tax treatment (which corporations and unions clearly qualify)... As long as I have to pay taxes on all my gross income and corporations get to pay taxes on all of their net income, I believe the government has a right to regulate their speech in whatever way they see fit. Perhaps the club with which they beat them with shouldn't be censership but rather removal of their favorable tax treatment... but that's a decision that congress can make...

The bottom line is that today was a good day for Roberts... Alito on the other hand just plain chickened out... Where Roberts clearly took a middle road and Scalia, et al clearly took a different path, Alito left himself a bunch of outs with a very short (page 36) concurring opinion in which he basically says, "The rules were improperly applied in this case so therefore we don't need to rule on the constitutionality of the entire law".