WASHINGTON — "Hillary: The Movie" had little effect on last year's election campaign, but it could have a profound impact on a century of election laws that restrict corporations from promoting or attacking candidates for public office.
The Supreme Court took up a case Tuesday involving the 90-minute documentary that attacked Hillary Rodham Clinton when she was running for president. The dispute focused on whether the government can limit the use of corporate money in political campaigns.
Since 1907, federal law has barred corporations from directly spending for or against candidates. The same limit was imposed on labor unions in 1947.
Those restrictions laid the foundation for today's campaign finance laws, including many state laws. But they have come under growing attack in recent decades by those who maintain that they violate 1st Amendment guarantees of free speech.
The Supreme Court now has a five-member majority in favor of the free-speech view. And during an oral argument Tuesday, the only question seemed to be whether the justices would strike down some of the legal restrictions on corporate-funded campaign ads or all of them.
Either way, "Hillary: The Movie" could prove to be a legal landmark.
Citizens United, a conservative group based in Washington, made its movie when Clinton was the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. In the film, a parade of critics, including Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter and Dick Morris, deride her as dishonest and dishonorable.
David N. Bossie, who heads Citizens United, said he modeled his movie after Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," a 2004 documentary that ripped President George W. Bush.
The opinions in both movies are protected by the 1st Amendment. But Citizens United paid for its film in part with corporate funds. So when it sought to advertise the movie, the group ran into the federal campaign restrictions.
Long-standing laws require election-related groups to disclose who gave them money. The more recent McCain-Feingold Act also restricts the broadcast of corporate and union-funded election ads in the two months before an election. By simply mentioning a candidate's name, an ad can trigger the law's enforcement provisions.
Citizens United sued to challenge these restrictions. And during Tuesday's argument, former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson, the group's attorney, urged the court to rule broadly and to declare that corporations have the same free-speech right as others to support or oppose candidates for office.
