EDITORIAL
EYE ON ARKANSAS
Stevens brings hope
6
JUNE 6, 2012
ARKANSAS TIMES
BRIAN CHILSON
F
ormer Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens was in town the other night to refute the Court’s awful Citizens United decision, to which Stevens formally dissented when it was made in 2010. Co-sponsored by the Clinton School of Public Service, Stevens’ address was considered of some importance by CBS, NBC, the New York Times and other media outlets, less so by the local daily, which put its report on page 4B, after the obits. Billy Tauzin, a fixer for the drug companies, got better coverage when he spoke at the Clinton School a few years back. Tauzin is a Republican, and the Citizens United decision that Stevens criticizes was written by Republican justices, all of which may be coincidental. The decision also benefits Republican presidential candidates, including the one the daily has already endorsed. More coincidence, maybe. Stevens brought good news for those who believe the American people should choose their nation’s leaders, rather than deep-pocketed domestic and foreign corporations. Abraham Lincoln, a great Republican president, didn’t call for “government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations.” Quite the reverse. Nonetheless, a 5-4 Court majority in Citizens United removed long-standing limits on corporate political expenditures, allowing a flood of corporate money into the political process. The Court majority said in Citizens United, astonishingly, that corporations are “people” (Mitt Romney agrees!) and money is “free speech.” Some citizens thought the decision a joke at first, but the Antonin Scalia gang is not light-hearted. They showed that when they installed a president in 2000, wresting the right of selection from voters. Stevens, 92, retired from the Court after writing the Citizens United dissent, which was joined by three other justices. The good news he delivered in Little Rock is that he believes the Citizens United decision will not stand, at least not in its present form. The growing evidence that foreign entities are trying to control American elections, just as President Obama predicted, is beginning to be noted by the justices, Stevens said, making reconsideration of the Citizens United decision likely. Turning over American elections to Chinese corporations is hard to defend. Too, justices still on the court who joined in Stevens’ dissent are pressuring for reconsideration. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has written that experiences in state elections since Citizens United “make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” She urged the court to seize the opportunity “to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway.” The bad news from Stevens’ speech is that reconsideration won’t come before this year’s elections. For now, we, the people, must defend ourselves against the corporations and their agents, the Mitt Romneys and Tim Griffins. Remember what Lincoln said. Fight on.
WHERE IN ARKANSAS? Know where this slice of life in Arkansas is? Send along the answer to Times’ photographer Brian Chilson and win a prize. Once a month in this space, he’ll post a shot from a relatively obscure spot in Arkansas for Times’ readers to identify. We also invite photographers to contribute submissions of both mystery and other pictures to our eyeonarkansas Flickr group. Write to brianchilson@arktimes.com to guess this week’s photo or for more information.
The fight for equality
T
he Clinton School has another dynamic lecture at noon Monday. Hope native Chad Griffin will speak. He was a public relations executive in California after a stint as one of the youngest White House aides ever, joining Bill Clinton’s staff at age 19. Griffin went on to greater fame. He led the American Foundation for Equal Rights in a vigorous, but unsuccessful battle to defeat a proposition to ban samesex marriage in California. It was Griffin who brought together a legal dream team of David Boies and Ted Olson to challenge the marriage ban, a case soon to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Griffin has also become president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s leading organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights. He’ll be interviewed about his organization’s work by state Rep. Kathy Webb, the influential Little Rock legislator who co-chaired the Joint Budget Committee in the last legislative session. Griffin’s words are welcome anywhere, but more in need here than in, say, New York, where same-sex marriage is legal and there’s far less fear that sexual orientation can be a cause for discrimination in employment, housing or other public accommodation. Arkansas has made strides, but it will be among the last with barriers to full equality. Fall they will. I was pleased to learn when speaking at American Legion Boys State last week that delegates included gay students. That’s not really new. What’s new is the number who are “openly gay” — a loaded phrase I hope will disappear soon from use. (Have you ever heard someone called “openly heterosexual”?) Not too many years ago, an honest declaration of self could have been dangerous at Boys State. It might still be perilous in some parts of Arkansas. Marriage of people of the same sex is, of course,
unconstitutional in Arkansas. It will take a court ruling to strike this down, just as it took the courts to end the Arkansas Constitution’s protection of racial discrimination. (Voters symbolically MAX removed the racial hate speech, BRANTLEY barely, in 1992.) maxbrantley@arktimes.com Arkansas is not yet even at a point where the state’s largest newspaper will recognize all legal marriages of Arkansans. A Rockefeller marrying in South Carolina, yes, that may be reported. A male lawyer and a distinguished male professor, both from Little Rock, marrying in New York? That’s not fit for the marriage column. But the tide turns. I’ve actually seen a Young Arkansas Republican make a tolerant remark about homosexuals on Twitter, though no Republican political candidate would dare do that just yet. Polls show the tide of prejudice will ebb as the older generation dies off. Mass media influence, courageous openness and bedrock fairness will in time produce an undeniable arc toward justice. Money will help, as ever. Almost 50 major corporations joined the legal team that won the recent major legal victory over the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a law that allows discrimination against legally married couples. No Arkansas-based corporation was on that list, but Walmart has demonstrated patchy friendliness toward gay interest groups on occasion. Whether intended or not, Alice Walton’s hiring of a gay man with a stay-at-home partner and child to head her Crystal Bridges Museum was a powerful statement in conservative Bentonville. Next week, we have a chance to hear a man from Hope whose efforts will produce a landmark ruling — for better or worse — on minority rights. He’s worth a listen.