It is the year 2030 and you have been appointed by the President of the United States, Oprah Winfrey, to occupy a position in the U.S. Supreme Court.
For that moment, a new case arrives from the Court of Appeals in which that court, under the old doctrine initiated in Citizens United v. Federal Commission, decides that private corporations or legal entities have the right to vote as if they were natural persons. The Court of Appeals thus extended the right of freedom of expression declared under the first amendment of the United States Constitution. Under this premise, private corporations or legal entities can openly compete for elective positions in the nation. As a result of the decision made by the Court of Appeals, the multinational company General Electric prepares its electoral campaign to compete for the governorship of Massachusetts.
It happens that eight out of nine of the members of the Supreme Court have already voted and the case is tied by four votes (4-4). You, as a judge, represents the tiebreaker vote. In addition, you have been chosen by the Supreme Court to write the majority opinion in this case. As part of this exercise, the judge (the student) must decide on this controversy counting only with the readings assigned during a course that she/he took in the year 2018 entitled “The Critical Study of Law” and taught by a college professor whose name you can not remember.
The judge must:
1. Trace the formal and informal facts of the current state of thing (in 2018). That is, tell the social, historical and economic background of Citizens United;
2. Define the political, economic and legal dispute in the case. Try to identify the parties’ or actor involved in the dispute;
3. Decide and be the tiebreaker. In doing so, you should: Affirm the Court of Appeal’s ruling; or Reverse it. In either case you need to explain your decision based on the readings and the films showed in class. Remember, you are the one writing the majority opinion of the court. Make sure you analyzed the significance and the possible social effects of your decision in legal and political terms.