Court Puts Ad Limits on ‘Hillary: The Movie’
January 16, 2008
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
nytimes.com
WASHINGTON (AP) _ — A conservative group must abide by campaign finance laws if it wants to run advertisements promoting its anti-Hillary Rodham Clinton movie, a federal court ruled Tuesday.
The group, Citizens United, had hoped to run the television advertisements in key election states during peak primary season. The ruling means it must keep its commercials off the air or attach a disclaimer and disclose its donors.
Lawyers for the group had argued that its 90-minute “Hillary: The Movie” was no different from documentaries seen on television news shows like “60 Minutes” and “Nova.” That prompted skepticism and, at one point, outright laughter from the judges at a hearing last week.
Campaign regulations prohibit corporations and unions from paying for advertisements that run close to elections and identify candidates. Citizens United argued that the advertisements promoted the movie and should be treated as commercial speech as opposed to advocacy against Mrs. Clinton, a New York Democrat.
A three-judge panel unanimously disagreed. The film does not address legislative issues and was produced solely “to inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office, that the United States would be a dangerous place in a President Hillary Clinton world, and that viewers should vote against her,” wrote Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court.
A similar issue surfaced in 2004, when Citizens United sought to keep the filmmaker Michael Moore from advertising “Fahrenheit 9/11” in the months before the presidential election. The Federal Election Commission dismissed the complaint after Mr. Moore said he had no plans to run the advertisements during election season.
Citizens United’s commercials include clips from the movie, including one in which Dick Morris — a former adviser to President Bill Clinton who is now a critic of the Clintons — says that Mrs. Clinton is “the closest thing we have in America to a European socialist.”
By law, challenges to the campaign finance regulations are considered by a three-judge panel of district and appellate judges in Washington. During last week’s hearing, Citizens United drew the most criticism from the panel’s two Republican nominees: Judges Lamberth and A. Raymond Randolph, an appellate judge. The third judge, Richard W. Roberts, was a nominee of President Clinton.
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