- Citizens United
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This article is about the conservative political organization. For the U.S. Supreme Court case on campaign finance, see Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Citizens United 
Motto Dedicated to restoring our government to citizen control. Formation 1988 Type Non-profit Headquarters Washington, DC President, Chairman David Bossie Website http://www.citizensunited.org Citizens United is a conservative non-profit organization in the United States. Its president and chairman is David Bossie.
Contents
Overview
Citizens United describes its mission as being dedicated to restoring the United States government to "citizens' control" and to "assert American values of limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families, and national sovereignty and security." To fulfill this mission, Citizens United undertakes various educational projects, including television advertising and feature-length documentaries.[1]
Citizens United was founded in 1988. David Bossie has been its president since 2000. Its offices are on Pennsylvania Avenue in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, D.C. The associated Citizens United Foundation is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization.
Advocacy
Citizens United is known for supporting conservative causes even when they conflict with the Washington establishment of the Republican Party. The group produced a television advertisement that reveals several "surprisingly liberal" legislative actions taken by John McCain,[2] which aired on Fox News Channel.[3] On October 2, 2006, in reaction to revelations of a GOP cover-up of inappropriate communications between Congressman Mark Foley and teenage pages, Citizens United president David Bossie called on Dennis Hastert to resign over his role in covering up the scandal.[4]
American Sovereignty Project
The American Sovereignty Project is the lobbying arm of Citizens United, focused on issues related to American sovereignty and national security. Its goals include a complete withdrawal from the United Nations, defeat of the treaty establishing a permanent International Criminal Court, and "rejection of one-world government".[1]
Leadership
Citizens United's current leadership includes David N. Bossie, President and Chairman; Michael Boos, Vice President and General Counsel; Douglas L. Ramsey, Secretary-Treasurer; and Directors Ron Robinson, John Bliss, Kirby Wilbur.
Citizens United Productions
Citizens United Productions, headed by president David Bossie, has released 20 feature-length documentaries. The following is a list of films produced by Citizens United Productions.
- ACLU: At War with America
- America at Risk
- Battle for America
- Blocking 'The Path to 9/11'
- Border War: The Battle Over Illegal Immigration
- Broken Promises: The UN at 60
- Celsius 41.11
- Fire From The Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman
- Generation Zero
- Hillary: The Movie
- HYPE: The Obama Effect
- Nine Days that Changed the World
- Perfect Valor
- Rediscovering God in America
- Rediscovering God in America II: Our Heritage
- Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny
- We Have the Power: Making America Energy Independent
Rediscovering God in America, Rediscovering God in America II, Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny, We Have the Power, and Nine Days That Changed The World were hosted by the married couple Newt Gingrich and Callista Gingrich.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Main article: Citizens United v. Federal Election CommissionCitizens United was the plaintiff in a Supreme Court case which began as a challenge to various statutory provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), known as the "McCain-Feingold" law. The case revolved around the documentary Hillary: The Movie which was produced by Citizens United. Under the McCain-Feingold law, a federal court in Washington D.C. ruled that Citizens United would be barred from advertising its film.[5] The case (08-205, 558 U.S. 50 (2010)) was heard in the United States Supreme Court on March 24, 2009. During oral argument, the government argued that under existing precedents, it had the power under the constitution to prohibit the publication of books and movies if they were made or sold by corporations. [6] After that hearing, the Court requested re-argument specifically to address whether deciding the case required the Court to reconsider those earlier decisions in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and McConnell v. FEC. The case was re-argued on September 9. On January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court overturned the provision of McCain-Feingold barring corporations and unions from paying for political ads made independently of candidate campaigns.[7]
A dissenting opinion by Justice Stevens[8] was joined by Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor. It concurred in the Court's decision to sustain BCRA's disclosure provisions, but dissented from the principal holding of the majority opinion. The 90-page dissent argued that the Court's ruling "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will...do damage to this institution." The dissent also argued that the Court's holding that BCRA §203 was facially unconstitutional was ruling on a question not brought before it by the litigants, and so claimed that the majority "changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law." Stevens concluded his dissent with:
At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.
In September 2010, Americans United for Life Action - a 501(c)4 affiliated with Americans United for Life - ran radio ads[9] advocating that incumbent Members of Congress John Boccieri, Chris Carney, and Baron Hill be defeated. News reports at the time indicated that the ads were "among the first ads to capitalize"[10] on the decision.
Nuisance phone calls
Citizens United is known for making repeated unsolicited calls to home phones. The organization will remove a phone number when a call is returned to the organization and option #3 is chosen, thus avoiding future calls.
References
- ^ a b About Citizens United, CitizensUnited.org
- ^ Surprisingly Liberal, Citizens United.
- ^ Citizens United Against McCain, January 31, 2008.
- ^ Conservative Activists Call on Hastert To Resign, ThinkProgress, October 2, 2006.
- ^ Barnes, Robert (2009-03-14). "'Hillary: The Movie' to Get Supreme Court Screening". The Washington Post: p. A5. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/14/AR2009031401603_pf.html.
- ^ "The Myth of Campaign Finance Reform". National Affairs. 2010. http://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-myth-of-campaign-finance-reform.
- ^ "Justices Block Key Part of Campaign Law". Associated Press / New York Times. 2010-01-21. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/21/us/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Campaign-Finance.html.[dead link]
- ^ Stevens opinion at ibid.
- ^ http://takeaction.aul.org/2010/09/aul-action-begins-radio-campaign-holding-lawmakers-accountable-for-supporting-taxpayer-funded-abortion/
- ^ http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gqAH3m4ghI6hi0dSDW2dwOzCwgjAD9I0245O1
External links
- Citizens United official website
- Citizens United at the Internet Movie Database
- Citizens United v FEC DC District Court Opinion
Categories:- Political advocacy groups in the United States
- 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations
- New Right organizations (United States)
- Non-profit organizations based in Washington, D.C.
- Organizations established in 1988
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