Page 28 - AVN March 2016

LEGAL NEWS
LEGALESE | | By Clyde DeWitt
Winners Takes All
This November’s election is absolutely huge
every Republican
”Since 1985,
administration
has enforced
2257 and has
Wherever it is in the United States that you may live, on
November 8 you will have the opportunity to vote
for the office of President of the United States;
for a member of the House of Representatives
from your district; in many states, for a
senator; and in many places, for state, and
local officials. This is a very important
election.
marriage equality; and many of the principles that keep
this industry alive are sure to be severely eroded.
To illustrate how determined the Republicans
have been to kill Roe v. Wade, consider the
following:
• During his re-election campaign in
1984, President Reagan aggressively sought
support from evangelicals, as has every
Republican presidential candidate since then.
The centerpiece of that effort consistently has
been a promise to nominate to the Supreme
Court conservative justices who would vote to
overrule Roe v. Wade.
• All five of the currently sitting justices appointed
by Republican presidents are members of the Roman Catholic
brought
obscenity
prosecutions;
no Democratic
administration
since then has
done so. That,
folks, impacts
your business
and your
freedom.
Clyde DeWitt is a Las Vegas and Los Angeles
attorney, whose practice has been focused on adult
entertainment since 1980. He can be reached at
ClydeDeWitt@earthlink.net. More information can
be found at ClydeDeWitt.com. This column is not a
substitute for personal legal advice. Rather, it is to alert
readers to legal issues warranting advice from your
personal attorney.
28 | AVN.com | 3.16
Below explains why, including a refresher
on some principles of American government.
This stuff is really important. Your livelihood—
and maybe your freedom—depends upon it.
The United States Supreme Court
Justices of the Supreme Court, of course, are not elected,
thankfully. Rather, they are appointed by the president with
the “advice and consent of the Senate.” So why talk about the
Court in connection with the election candidates? And why
talk about it first? Read on.
The “advice” part of the latter-quoted phrase does not
mean much, but the “consent” part looms large. When a
president nominates someone to be a Supreme Court justice,
the nominee must undergo hearings in the Senate. If, after the
hearings, a majority does not vote to confirm the nominee, the
president is required to start over.
The Supreme Court normally has nine justices: a chief
justice and eight associate justices. Of the current eight
remaining after Justice Scalia’s death, two are very extreme
conservatives: Justices Thomas and Alito. A third, appointed
by George W. Bush, Chief Justice Roberts, has strongly
conservative leanings.
The ultra-conservative two plainly would vote to overrule
Roe v. Wade, the Court’s 1973 abortion-rights case if given the
chance. They also consistently vote to trample free-speech
rights unless Big Corporate America is doing the talking.
Four liberal-leaning justices—Breyer and Ginsburg,
appointed by President Clinton, along with Justices Kagan and
Sotomayor, appointed by President Obama—largely support
free speech rights.
The swing justice on issues important to this industry is
Justice Anthony Kennedy. In 1987, after the Senate blocked
President Reagan’s nomination of ultra-conservative, out-
of-the-box Robert Bork, Anthony Kennedy was something
of a surprise choice. He has been a disappointment to
conservatives. Because he is a Catholic, they were counting on
him to vote to overrule Roe v. Wade. He has done the opposite.
How likely is it that the winner in November will affect the
makeup of the court? If the next president serves two terms,
three justices will be well into their 80s or more before he or
she leaves office: Justice Ginsburg, who will be 91 at the end
of that eight-year run, as well as Justice Kennedy, who will be
88, and Justice Breyer, who will be 86; and it’s a good bet that
President Obama will not have the political muscle to replace
the recently deceased Justice Scalia. If the Senate majority is
of the president’s party, the nominees to fill any of these slots
will have easier sailing through confirmation hearings.
If the replacements come from the Republican Party, you can
be certain that Roe v. Wade will be overruled as will probably
Church, which vehemently opposes abortion. (The sixth
Catholic on the Court is Justice Sotomayor.) Oddly, the other
three justices are Jewish, leaving no Protestant on the Court.)
• Ever since President Reagan embraced the evangelicals
during his 1984 reelection campaign, materially every major
Republican candidate has pushed Roe v. Wade as a campaign
centerpiece.
The justice that most Republicans like best was the late
Antonin Scalia, who complained in his dissent in the 2003
Lawrence v. Texas decision, the case striking down laws against
consensual, homosexual activity:
“State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest,
prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality,
and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’
validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of
these laws is called into question by today’s decision.”
Worse, Donald Trump of late stated his preference for Justice
Clarence Thomas, who usually agrees with Scalia but in many
senses is worse.
The Roe v. Wade issue is important because justices typically
are as aligned on free-speech issues as they are on abortion.
In fact, they are typically similarly aligned on most individual
liberties issues, save two: gun rights and corporate speech, the
latter being a bombshell, as explained below.
The Citizens United Case
In the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision,
the Supreme Court dealt the biggest blow to individual rights
in its history. The case involved the McCain–Feingold 2002
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which placed severe limits
on campaign spending. The Court gutted the law on First
Amendment grounds, in a 5-4 decision. And the majority
justices consisted of the five Republican appointees on the
Court. And—you guessed it—the dissent consisted of the four
Democratic appointees.
The net result of Citizens United is that individuals and
corporations now can contribute all the money that they want
to support or oppose a political candidate for any office, federal
state or local. Cash is king!
The disparity between the very wealthy and the rest of us
is the greatest since the post-Civil-War Industrial Revolution
days, when the likes of Vanderbilt, Rockefeller and Carnegie
monopolized the core industries of the day, and workers were