And Justice Kennedy gets it wrong

As Matt Welch reports, wrongly:

"As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion, "The law before us is an outright ban, backed by criminal sanctions. Section 441b makes it a felony for all corporations -- including nonprofit advocacy corporations -- either to expressly advocate the election or defeat of candidates or to broadcast electioneering communications within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election. ... If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech."

The question is did Congress and the Corporation agree to the criminal ban prior to incorporation? Was that contractual clause devoid of Due Process? Dunno, send it back to business law to find out. The question is does Congress have the right to impose criminal penalties in contract law. I address that later.

But no one person was preventing from using their own funds to have that movie broadcast. What was missing was the unwillingness of any single person to buy that film from Citizens United, or the unwillingness of Citizens United to sell the movie.

Can Congress impose criminal penalties for breach of contract? Maybe not, that seems a violation of Due Process, in Business law, under Due process statutes. But what about anti trust and insider trading law? These are criminal, and they reflect apriori bans on certain forms of assembly.

However go back to the original contract, shareholders get some limited immunity, and in response it seems a requirement that at least civil penalties be imposed for restrictions on that civil immunity. If corporations have some limits on criminally liability, then Congress has to explicitly describe restrictions, as Criminal violations. But the issue was not ruled on.

I mean, all HT to Instapundit, but each argument Glenn puts up will be shot down. This is a tautological contradiction, an impossibility of a ruling.