Today, CAC released the newest chapter in CAC’s series, The Constitution at a Crossroads: The Ideological Battle Over the Meaning of the Constitution, a comprehensive effort to map and describe the key ideological battlegrounds on the United States Supreme Court over the meaning of the United States Constitution.  I invite you to read theIntroduction to Crossroads for more background on this ambitious and exciting enterprise.

The latest Crossroads chapter focuses on the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United and the stark ideological divide on the Court over the constitutional role of corporations and the future of campaign finance laws. This chapter chronicles the Constitution’s text and history in this area, examines the divide exposed in the Court’s most recent cases — Citizens United andArizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett — and documents the significant number of new cases in this area now steamrolling toward the High Court.  

Read the Crossroads chapter on Citizens United.

The paramount importance of these issues was documented this last weekend when President Barack Obama launched his re-election campaign in Ohio with a broadside against the Supreme Court majority’s conclusion in Citizens United — that corporations have the same rights to influence elections as “We the People” — saying in a rejoinder to Governor Mitt Romney, “I don’t care how many ways you try to explain it –corporations aren’t people. People are people.”

CAC began the roll-out of Crossroads in the run-up to oral argument in the Affordable Care Act cases in March.  Those three days of argument before the Supreme Court — which saw the Court’s conservatives contemplating striking down the entire Act, or at least potentially ruling for the States challenging the Act on one or more of their claims — highlight just how sharp the ideological divide on the Court is in many areas.  Today’s Crossroads chapter is the first of approximately ten more, each with comprehensive analyses of the Court’s ideological divide on topics ranging from the role of the federal judiciary, to the meaning of equal protection, to the Second Amendment.

I have included you as a recipient of this email because I’m hoping you will share my conviction that The Constitution at a Crossroads is a vital effort at a critical time. I would also love any feedback you might have on individual chapters or the effort overall — it is very much a work in progress.  But please, if for any reason you would rather not receive notice of new Crossroads chapters as they come out, simply click on the “Unsubscribe” link below and you will receive no additional Crossroads chapters by email. 

To see all of the Crossroads chapters released to date, visit the Crossroads page of our website. As history is made both in the courts and at the ballot box in the next few months, Crossroads will be essential reading.