ABSTRACT
Each January the president delivers a “State of the Union” address to a joint session of Congress. While these speeches are broadcast live in prime time and closely watched, few of them are memorable. President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address was memorable because he criticized the Supreme Court, seated directly in front of him, for a recent decision. The court overturned a century of law and judicial precedent barring corporate spending on elections, declaring these limits to be unconstitutional violations of corporate free speech rights. Obama thought those laws and precedents not just constitutional, but critical defenses of the integrity of American elections. Could Obama have simply said “I disagree,” and ordered the Justice Department and Federal Election Commission to continue implementing the legal prohibitions on corporate campaign spending? No, but this is not the fi rst time the question had come up.
