Tuesday, March 24, 2009
"Hillary: The Lawsuit"
NPR's Nina Totenberg covers the hotly contested lawsuit over "Hillary: The Movie" at the Supreme Court today here. Notes Ms. Totenberg,
During the 2008 presidential primary campaign, a conservative advocacy group called Citizens United produced Hillary: The Movie, a 90-minute documentary that was available on DVD and came and went quickly in theaters. The group wanted to run it on cable TV as an on-demand movie and maintained that it was not subject to federal campaign rules because the movie did not say explicitly that people should vote for or against Clinton. A three-judge federal court in Washington didn't buy the argument that the movie wasn't campaign electioneering. It ruled unanimously that there is only one way the movie could be interpreted: "to inform the electorate that Sen. Clinton is unfit for office." Thus, the court said, the movie is covered by a variety of provisions in the McCain-Feingold law.
Here's more coverage of the case from MSNBC.com, the Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Times, and the AP.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/media_law_prof_blog/2009/03/the-supreme-court-as-movie-critic.html