through this kind of technology. >> your use of technology, hasn't altered the way you look at legislation that might be coming up, net neutrality or other legislative initiatives that might come up? >> in a major way, and not just with respect to issues like nec neutrality. we are at a point where we can truly make government transparent and open government up to the american people. we have the technology, and now is just a matter of summoning the political will. one of the bills i am working on right now would require that every freedom of information act request be posted on the internet, so that the american people can see exactly what kind of information is there, who has requested a, and just open up government to a more transparent process. . .

>> this is c-span's "america and the courts set up on tuesday, justice sotomayor took her seat for the first time, becoming the 111 member of the court. this included president obama, vice-president biden, and her president's -- co-worker, david souter. a welcoming gesture has become part of the justice's new arrival.

justice sotomayor was joined outside the court by her mother, brother, and other family members.

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on wednesday, justice sotomayor took part in her first oral argument at the supreme court. citizens united verses that federal election commission will decide the role of the corporation's financing campaigns. this was the final session of the supreme court. the term officially begins monday, october 5. >> citizens united verses the federal election commission. >> may it please the court, a robust debate of our candidates for elective office is the most fundamental value protected by the first amendment's guarantee of free speech. yet, that is precisely the dialogue that the government has prohibited if practiced by unions or corporations. and the union, any corporation. -- any union, any corporation.

the government feels they can do so because of the fact that it might not actually reflect public support for the use expressed by the corporation. the government admits that that radical concept of requiring public support for a speech before you can speech -- speak would criminalize books and science -- signs. when they are acting to criminalize speech that is at the core of the first the amendment, it places a heavy burden to say that there is a government in trust testifying that prohibition and that the regulation be adopted, in this case, the criminal statute the most narrowly tailored necessary to establish that interest.

>> there is no difference in the first amendment rights of an individual, a corporation being not endowed with inalienable rights by its creator. if there is any distinction that congress could draw between an operation and human beings for purposes of campaign finance. >> what the court has said in the first amendment context and over and over again is that corporations are persons, entitled to protection under the first amendment. >> would that include today's megacorporations where betty of the investors -- many of the investors may be foreign individuals or entities? >> the court in the past has made no distinction based on the

entity. >> how many shares owned? nowadays, there are foreign interests, even foreign governments that own not one share, but a good number of shares. >> i submit that the connection has in past made no distinction. >> in the view you are putting forth that there is no distinction between an individual and the corporation for first amendment purposes, congress could not limit their spending. >> i'm not saying that, just as ginsberg. i am saying that the first amendment applies, and the next debt is to decide is whether a compelling interest and tailored

remedy has been established. if there is no record in this case, certainly, the government has not advanced in briefs that there is a governmental in pryor's -- interest in corporations. if there was, the government would determine how serious the interest is, and maybe it would have to do with the ownership of corporations. >> could prohibit individuals from funding speeches in elections? private individuals, foreigners. >> that is a different question. i have not studied it. the fundamental point here is, and let me start with this -- the government hardly mentions this.

but the first amendment, congress shall make -- >> yes or no. does the first amendment to permit any distinction between corporate speakers and individual speakers? >> i am not aware of the case -- >> in your view, doesn't permit that distinction. >> my view would be that of less there is a -- unless there is a compelling government interest -- >> can there be any case in which there is a different treatment of corporations and individuals. >> i cannot rule that out, justice stevens. i cannot imagine the variety of potential problems that may exist. but we eventually come back to the narrow problem of tailoring. the government has prohibited speech. i do not know how many unions there are in this country, but there are something like 6 million corporations that file

tax returns in 2006. >> do you think that the media corporations that are owned by foreign shareholders have less first amendment rights and other media corporations? >> i do not think so. certainly, there is no record to suggest that there's any problem based on that. and i come back to the land of the first amendment. congress shall make no law. what this court has repeatedly said is that there may be laws inhibiting speech if there is a compelling interest and a narrowly favored remedy. but there is no justification for this. 97% of the 6 million corporations that file tax returns in 2006 had assets less than $5 million. assets, not net worth. so we're talking about a prohibition that covers every corporation in the united states, including nonprofit corporations, limited liability

corporations, subchapter s corporations, and every union. >> you knew the work prohibition -- word of prohibition, mr. austan. nothing is being prohibited. it is a question not of whether they can contribute, but how. they can use tax. the people who continue to contribute our the issuers. they may be supporting the issue of the candidates. they can get it, but they have to use a tactic. >> i disagree. the corporation may not spend money. it may find stockholders of officers that want to contribute to a separate fund. it is more like surrogate

speech. if you want to find other people that say what you want to say and get them to contribute money -- >> those are the directors? the ceo? not the shareholders. we do not know what they say. >> this statute is not limited to cases where shareholders agree or do not agree with what the corporation says. the prohibition would exist whether or not shareholders agree. but let me go back to your question. >> totally owned corporations, too? >> yes, and it includes membership corporations, such as citizens united. >> $2,500, instead of 2400, the limit. there are people in the united states where if they gave more

money, no one could say that was an effort to buy the senator or congressman. is that unconstitutional, also? >> the court has said that in connection with limitations, there is a potential compelling governmental interest, and expenditures do not concern the question, the actual threat of quid pro quo. it is not prohibiting someone from speaking. >> the obvious argument is, look, they said the compelling interest is that people think representatives are being bought, ok? that is how put it. you can understand what i'm trying to do. that is what they say. so congress now says precisely that interest to be just what to

limit the expenditures that can be made by lectionary communication in the last 30 days of a primary over the air, television, but not on radio, books, pamphlets, not on anything else. so in what respect is there not a compelling interest, narrowly tailored? >> expenditures do not reset concerned at all. congress has not made that finding. in buckley, the court specifically said that is the most important means of communicating during an election, and they used the words indispensable. what they said is that it compared a limitation on expenditures, independent, uncoordinated, with a prohibition the court addressed when it had a statute before it

sank newspapers could not endorse candidates on the day of d newspapers couldn't endorse candidates on the day of election, and the torneo case which required a reply to be given. and the court said those restrictions which were unconstitutional were considerably less and that the restriction in buckley versus vallejo on expenditures -- >> i agree that buckley made the distinction between contributions and expenditures. and it seems to me that the government's argument necessarily wants to water down that distinction. but in sponsor just in furtherance of justice breyer's point, you have two cases. one in which officeholder goes to a corporation, says, will you please give me money? they said we can't do that. the other is in which a corporation takes out an ad for the -- for the candidate which relieves that candidatecorporatu

please give me money? they said we can't do that. the other is in which a corporation takes out an if there's any -- >> and i think buckley says no. >> buckley -- >> but as a practical matter, is that always true? >> well, it may not always be true. in the infinite potential applications of something like that, justice kennedy, anything might possibly be true. and justice breyer said, well, what if congress thought or what if congress thought the people might think that that was kind of somehow suspect? that is not a basis for prohibiting speech by a whole class of -- >> well, of course, it did, was a basis for prohibiting speech by in the sense of giving contributions above $2,400, by 300 million people in the united states. but the point, which i think is the one justice kennedy was picking up, is are we arguing here between you and my questions?

because congress seems to think certain concern about the perception by candidates. are we arguing about tailoring? or are we arguing about whether we should second-guess congres'' on whether there's enough of a compelling interest and that tailoring is narrow enough. >> we're not arguing. we are discussing both the compelling governmental interest and narrow tailoring, and there is not a sufficient record. the reason the government has shifted position here is we're so far talking about the distortion rationale in austin. they seem to think that the supplemental briefs in this argument resorted to the appearance of corruption. there is not a sufficient record

of this. >> wasn't there are finding between the courts that federal officials know of and want to feel indebted to corporations to finance advertisements urging the election of them or the defeat of their opponent? what is the fighting to that effect? -- what is the finding to that effect? >> something in the district court opinion, but it does not cover all corporations. it did not focus specifically -- >> if they did cover large

e the case. >> in your discussion with austan, you rely on its

distinction from another case. why isn't that significant? >> it is what the court said, that we are not deciding that question. if austan did address of expenditures. but it based it on a rationale -- >> one of them said it was an entirely different situation. you read that and it was cited six or eight times. >> i also read footnote 14 in the case that cited case after case after case that said corporations had rights under the first amendment. i'm not disagreeing with what you have just said. the court said it was picked up because they did not deal with it. >> that footnote has been repeatedly cited incest -- subsequent cases, most of which were unanimous.

>> the court was not discussing that. >> it just came out differently. it said we are just not deciding. it did not decide that. >> what it also said, and this is also in many decisions, the inherent worth of speech in terms of capacity for informing the public does not depend upon the identity of the source, whether corporation, association, union, or individual. >> what is the distinction? why don't you think that distinction makes sense? in other words, you do not have the potential for corruption in corp. speaking on a referendum that might directly affect them. if you are dealing with a candidate, the court has said in

the past that you do have the problem of corruption. why isn't that distinction reconciled? >> there is a distinction, but it goes back to expenditures versus contributions, number one, and it goes back secondly to what this court said in conjunction with the impossibility of finding advertisements. the dissolves on practical application. you said that repeatedly, including a recent right-to-life case. and the first appeared in buckley itself. distinction is hard to draw between the interest the speaker addresses and whether it is a candidate or an issue, because issues are wrapped up in candidates. the corporation interest in the interest its fiduciary officers represent when it is the behalf of the corporation -- >> you're correct to say there

was no distinction. the distinction requires the use of magic words, which is what they said in wisconsin right to life, also. both of them said there is distinction. nobody said there was no distinction that i'm aware of. >> the word of the court, which occurred repeatedly, is that the distinction dissolves with practical application. that addresses the very common- sense point that when you are addressing an issue, whether you are addressing a referendum matter, whether it is proposed legislation or candidate that is going to raise taxes on the corporation, those distinctions dissolves. is all first amendment freedom. >> i thought that buckley had narrowed the statute and still found it unconstitutional as applied to corporations that made independent expenditures.

>> be limited and buckley was first limited to the candidacy expression, magic words, and to court, in the words of the statute, were any person, including finding unconstitutional -- and some of the plaintiffs were corporations. it was not discussed in the opinion. what was discussed was the bread of the definition of person, which did include corporations. corporations were parties in the case, and that part of the case, the court repeatedly cites cases involving corporations, including naacp versus alabama and "new york times" versus sullivan. while not explicitly discussed, it was part of the decision. the limitation was worse, more restrictive than the restriction

of editorials during on election day or requiring a newspaper to give their right of reply. buckley says that this with this expenditure limitation, it was the most drastic of the limitations imposed by the federal election campaign act. it goes to the core of first amendment freedom. >> if that is so -- this is a concern. suppose you're right and we overruled these cases. would that leave the country in a situation where corporations and trade unions can spend as much as they want in the last 30 days on television advertisements, etc., but political parties could not, because political parties can only spend hard money on this kind of expenditure. therefore, the group charged with the responsibility of building a platform that will appeal to a platform of

americans is limited. but in the grips with particular interests, like corporations, they can spend as much as they want. am i right? if so, what do i do about it? >> 27 states have no limits for expenditures, and the earth -- >> i am saying, am i right in thinking that if you win, the political party is limited to corporations, and trade unions can spend unlimited funds. >> if the decided favorite the guments we're making here, what you're suggesting is because there are other indicators that it would be unfair and unbalanced -- >> it would make a hash of the statute.

another part of the statute says that political sales did not make these expenditures except of hard money. >> i want to address that in this way. the most fundamental right we can exercise is we have wrapped up that freedom,mothered that freedom with the most complicated set of regulations and bureaucratic controls. last year, the federal election commission, supposed to be able to give advisory commissions, did not even have a quorum for the first six months of 2008, where people would have needed help. what i say in response to your question is that i suspectll kinds of problems with federal election laws, where they apply

to parties, " candidates might do and so forth -- that has never been a justification. we will uphold a prohibition on all kinds of people speaking because if we allowed them to speak, someone else might complain they do not get to speak as much as they might like. >> are you aware of a case in this court that says we must refrain from addressing something unconstitutional? >> no, and i think that is our response to what i was attempting to say. >> are you giving up on your earlier arguments that there are ways to avoid the constitutional question to resolve this case? i know we asked for further briefing on this particular issue overturning precedents, but are you giving up on

earlier arguments, statutory interpretation? >> no, justice sotomayor. but there are all kinds of wines the court could draw that would provide a victory to my client. there are so many reasons why the federal government did not have the right to criminalize this 90-minute documentary that had to do with elections. but what the court addressed specifically in the washington right-to-life case is that the winds there that could be drawn must not be lines that are ambiguous, that invite litigation, that hold the threat of prosecution over an individual, and in practical application, that is what -- >> my difficulty is, to make very impassioned arguments about why this is a bad system, the courts have to fill it, it is jurisprudence, but we do not have any records. you make a lot of arguments about how foreign the nature of

corporations, single corporations, stockholder corporations, etc. -- but there is no record that i am reviewing that actually goes into the very question that you are arguing exists, which is a patchwork of regulatory and jurisprudential guidelines that are so unclear. >> i would like to answer that. i would like to reserve the balance of my time for rebuttal. it is the government that has the burden to prove the record justifying telling somebody wants to make a 90-minute documentary about a candidate for president that they will go to jail if they broadcast it. the government has an obligation and a long legislative record. plenty of opportunity to produce that record, and it is that obligation to do so. >> one question. no one has commented on the national rifle association's

amethyst brief. that is a response to justice sotomayor's fought that there are narrow ways of resolving problem. tell us now. do not keep us in suspense. [laughter] >> every line, including the lines that will be drawn and several of these briefs, and they are not the same, with the entity who wishes to speak before you again a year ago from now. the move might be shorter, it might be video on demand or broadcast or have a different tone. every one of those lines puts the speaker at peril that he will go to jail or be prosecuted or there will be litigation, all of which chills speech and inhibits things. >> the line suggested by the nra is identified by congress in an

amendment dealing with individual financing of speech, so what is your comment on that particular solution? >> i would like to take advantage of the offer and respond to that during the rubble, mr. chief justice. >> mr. abrams? >> the first case cited to you by mr. olson was in new york times against sullivan. i would like to begin are raising two propositions on you from that case.

three arguments were made to the court. to win, they said, you either have to revise libel law to a considerable degree, which they did, or, they said, you only sold 390 copies in alabama, so you can rule in their favor saying there was no distinction, or, they said, we did not even mentioned tariffs sullivan's name, so you could rule in our favor on the ground that they have not proved the libel case. the court did research. they did the broad, rather than the narrow way to address the question, and i suggest they did it because they had come to the conclusion this out the degree of first amendment did danger of a sort of lawsuits occurring in alabama and elsewhere was something that had to be faced up to by the court now.

>> the case did not involve overruling precedents of this court that had been followed by this court and others, so i think the situation -- >> it did involve overruling a and 50 years of american jurisprudence. there's no law at that time about malice -- >> we adhere to our precedents, especially a case such as austan. amassing large funds in corporate treasuries was not a new idea. and it was repeated after. but times against sullivan, i think, is quite distinct. the question posed here is, is

it a proper way to resolve this to overrule one precedent and throw in another? >> what i am urging you is that by a parity of reasoning, there are cases in which there is an ongoing threat to freedom of expression which may lead -- if you were to agree with that, it may lead the court to say that rather than taking an error or route to the same result, is worth our moving away in this case from looking for the narrowest way out and determining it now rather than .

>> the first question was obviously involved. >> and this is a question much briefed by the parties, and one which involves consideration not only of the merits, but of certain other factors, the time the decision has been in effect and the like. the time in this case for the mcconnell case is only six years. the time for the austin cases 19 years, less than one ruling just last term. >> but they also said in a case

eight years before that it was not a new invention. >> austan was the first time corporate speech, corporate independent expenditures were barred by a ruling. that had not happened prior to austan, and the brief acknowledges that. >> but there have been limits on corporate spending since this century. >> since the turn of the century. corporate independent expenditures came much later, and that is something that i think is broached. >> president truman -- >> yes,

that has always been an area of controversy, not just in the public spirit but in the judicial spirit, where the court said in one case after another that the statute did not govern the particular facts of the case. they opposed their own independent expenditures. all i am saying is this is not a situation. it is just that we have an unbroken amount of years in which it has been accepted the independent expenditures could be barred. it has always been a matter --

the first ruling on a point -- >> have you read justice rehnquist cost dissent in the case? >> yes, i have. >> it is somewhat inconsistent with what you said. >> and also inconsistent with his later view. >> correct. >> going back, the one thing interesting is the active involvement of both stated that federal legislators in trying to find that balance between the interest of protecting, and dared you, how the electoral process should proceed, and the interests of the first amendment. so my question to you is, once

we say they cannot except on the basis of a compelling government interest, and narrowly tailored, are we cutting off, would we be cutting off that future democratic process? because what you are suggesting is that the courts who created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons. there could be an argument made that that was the court's error to start with, not austan or mcconnell. but the fact that the court reviewed a creature of state law which human characteristics. we can go back the very basics. wouldn't we be doing some more harm than good by a broad ruling in a case that does not

involve business corporations and actually does not even involve the traditional non- profit corporations. it involves advocacy corporations for particular interests. >> your honor, i do not think he would be doing more harm than good in vindicating the first amendment rights here, of which transcend that. i think, reading my friend's brief on the right, it has been pretty close to saying that there must be away for citizens united to win this case other than a broadway. in my view, the principles at stake here are the same. citizens united happens to be a paradigmatic example of the groups that you know less about, who to vote for, who not to vote

for, potential or on going, for president of the united states. but in a lot of other situations day-by-day there has been a block to public discourse caused as a result of this congressional legislation. and so, we think it is not a matter of cutting off the legislature's, what they can do. they can still pass legislation doing all sorts of things. they could to public funding predicted to many other things that do not violate the first amendment, if we are right in saying that independent expenditures, that category leading to speech that we're talking about today, if we are right that that is the conservative speech that is the core of the first amendment, you'd be doing only good, only

good by ruling that way today across the board. thank you, your honor. >> thank you, mr. abrams. general cave in. >> -- kagan. >> i have three points to make up the government position. for over 100 years, congress has made the judgment that corporations must be subject to special rules when they participate in elections, and this court -- >> we never approved or rejected it. we gave interpretations to the act to avoid confronting the question. >> for 100 years, this court faced many opportunities to do so. left standing, the legislation is an issue in this case. first the contribution limits,

then those that came by way of taft-hartley, and then in austin specifically approving these limits. >> i do not understand what you're saying. we're a solid starting institution come here. we only disapprove of something when somebody asks us to. there is no occasion for us to approve or disapprove. >> you are not assault started institution. but many cases are brought to you from 1907 onwards, and in each case, the cake -- the court declined the opportunity to invalidate or otherwise interfere with legislation. >> but that judgment was validated by buckley's contribution expenditure warrant. you are correct looking at contributions, but this is an expenditure case. why doesn't clarify the situation is to say -- what

doesn't clarify the situation is to say 100 years, which to work at all would have to have a speaker based distinction, an exception or media, content- based distinctions. >> i think justice stevens said the expenditure limits in place came into effect in 1947, so it has been 60 years, rather than 100 years. but in fact, before that, contribution limits were thought to be included in expenditures, and as soon as congress saw independent expenditures going on, the closed what they perceive to be a loophole. so neither, save for a brief period of time in the middle of the 1940's which was reacted to. the reason that congress has enacted the special rules --

>> before you go on, your answer to the question i posed to mr. olson. why isn't the snow-jeffers opinion considered? >> we will just skip over the second. my fifth point is that this is an anomalous case in court because it is and a typical plaintiff. this plaintiff is an illogical nonprofit -- >> you are giving up the distinction from mcfl that you defend it in your opening brief? there you said this does not qualify as a different type of corporation, and now you are changing that. >> i do not think so.

it is the law, and the fcc has always tried to implement it faithfully. >> do you think it applies in this case even though a corporation takes corporate funds from ford as profit corporations? >> i do not think it applies as written in this case, but i think the court could adjust it to potentially make it apply in this case, although i think that would require a remand. but it was written in a very strict kind of way, so that the organization had to have a policy of accepting no corporate funds whatsoever. some of the lower courts, including the circuit which sees these cases have suggested that is to strip -- stretched -- strict. the sec has no exception to mcfl being tested --

>> so you want to change your position and basically say that you lose, solely because of the questioning that we have directed in the argument? >> no, i do not think that that is fair. we continue to think that the judgment should be affirmed. if you're asking me as to whether the government has a preference as to the way in which it loses, if it has to lose, -- >> what case of hours of suggests that there's a hierarchy of bases on which we should rule against a party when both of them involve constitutional questions? extending it would be by virtue of the first amendment overruling. what cases says we should prefer one as opposed to the other? >> i think the question is the court's standard practice of deciding applied challenges before actual challenges. this case raises the number of

tricky as-applied questions. one is a question of how the statute applies to nonprofit organizations such as this one. another is a question of how it applies to transmissions, another is a question of how applies to a 90-minute infomercial as opposed to smaller advertisements. >> if you insist on these challenges, isn't that inconsistent with the line of cases that began in thornhill versus alabama and verses cincinnati? look at the formal document. even a litigant outstanding to object to particular, it can raise that if the statute covers it. in order that the statute does not have an ongoing chill against speech, and there is no

more likely place. where we have applied challenges based on what i indicate, speaker, content, time. and this is the chilling effect that the thornhill doctrine stands directly against. >> i think even in the first amendment context, justice kennedy, the court will not strike a statute on its face unless it finds substantial over brett. many applications for the on constitutional statutes, as opposed to just a few. i'm suggesting that the court was right in mcconnell, confirmed in wrtl, to find that the only statue directly involved in this case did not have that substantial overdraft. >> suppose we were to rule that non-profit corporations could not be accepted. >> i would urge you not to do that in that kind of sweeping way, because the reason for the

non-profit corporations being covered is to make sure that the non-profit corporations do not function as conduits for the for-profit corporations. >> so then they ask that they not be substantially overbought. >> i do not think it is right now. if you took out certain applications -- >> and then the statue has to follow. >> i see where you are saying. you could do a couple of things. he could do what justice stevens suggested. >> i do not think he really caught what i suggested, because he treated it as an enlargement -- you treated it as an enlargement. it covers advertisements financed exclusively by

individuals, even though there are corporations. >> that is right. your suggestion is essentially stripping the wellstone amendment. >> nobody has explained why that would not be the proper solution. >> there are some reasons that that might be appropriate. it was passed with the substantial support of many people who voted against the legislation in the and, presumably as a poison pill. >> if we go that route, what we're doing is creating an accounting industry. corporations get a huge amounts of money to the organizations and then some group has to decide whether in fact the way it is subverting the prohibition

against the direct beam of communication. so congress said, we do not want that. congress said that that was going to be a nightmare. don't we have to focus on whether congress can say that or whether they can? >> congress also said that if you strike down the wellstone amendment, we want this no different. why shouldn't we follow that directive? >> if you strike it down, what is left is snow-jeffers, which allows nonprofit corporations to find a separate bank accounts with residual expenditures. >> why is that the narrowest solution before us? >> it is certainly in our and better solution than the

evaluation of the statute. >> what do you understand to be the compelling interest articulated in austan? >> i think what the court articulated their and in the breeze is that austan -- what they articulated there was essentially concerned about corporations using the corporate form to appropriate other people's money for express purposes. >> you have more or less abandoned too strong a word, but you rely on a different interest, a corruption. and you articulate in page 11 of your brief that you recognize that this court has not accepted this interest as compelling. so is in it the case that this is up for play in the sense that you would grounded on an interest that the court has never recognized?

>> a couple of points. as you say, we have not abandoned it. we have simply said that in addition to other people's money in trusts -- interested -- >> where do you say that this aggregation of wealth interest supports austan? >> i would say it is a concern about corporate use of other people's money to elections -- >> putting that interest aside, where in your supplemental briefing do you support the interest articulated by the court versus austan? >> we talk about the distortion of the electoral process which occurs when corporations use shareholder money -- >> that is different interest. that is the shareholder protection in trust. as opposed to the fact corporations have such wealth and distort the markets. >> i think they are connected, because those comments --

>> so in the supplemental briefing, you do not arrive at all at this rationale on which austan relied. the market distortion issue. these corporations have all lot of money. >> we did not rely on them at all to the extent that anyone takes them to suggest anything about the equalization of the speech market. i know that is the way many people understand the distortion rationale, and if that is the way the court understands it, we do not rely at all on that. >> if we will preserve austan, we have to expect to accept your indication about the shareholder protection interest. >> i did the quid pro quo corruption interest or shareholder interest or what i would say is something related that, in my view, when

corporations use other people's money, that is a harm not just to shareholders themselves, but harm to the public coming from distortion of the election hearing done by corporations. >> let's assume that that is a valid interest. what percentage of the total number of corporations in the country are not single- shareholder corporations? the local hair dresser. the local automotive repair shop. the local new car dealer. i do not know any small business in this country that is not incorporated, and the vast majority of them are sold- shareholder owned. this statue makes it unlawful for all of them to do the things you're worried about, distorting the other interests.

that is vast over brett -- over bret -- overbreadth. i am not talking about the corruption. you have had your quid pro quo argument. we will get to that when we get there. but as far as the interest you are now addressing, though shareholders that do not agree with this political position of being somehow cheated. it does not apply, probably, to the vast majority of corporations in this country. >> you are right. when it comes to single shareholders, the protection interests do not apply. >> that cannot be the justification, because if it were, the statute would be vastly overdone -- >> the fastest is the anti- corruption. >> what is your reaction to the argument that