C_Clayton_Jones
Diamond Member
This is rather muddled and unclear.So the left is fine with overriding state laws they don't like but not when they favor the change. Immigration, voter id, mandated healthcare, etc., yeah the federal law trumps that! But not this, hell no!
But it has nothing to do with the left and whether they like a law or not.
Preemption doctrine maintains that Federal law trumps state law. See: Gibbons v. Ogden Also, decisions by the Supreme Court become the law of the land, all lower courts, including state supreme courts, must follow that law. The Montana law is consequently invalid.
Since it was a State Law determination, it could not possibly be a slap down of The United States Supreme Court.
Supreme Court rulings trump state court rulings, just as Federal laws trump state.
And, since the First Amendment is a Federal matter, it would seem pretty likely that the SCOTUS MIGHT yet slap down the Montana Supreme Court. (If money can equal speech under a Federal Constitutional First amendment Analysis, then it could be easily argued that the SCOTUS ruling IS the law of the land and Montana has no authority to "limit" free speech.)
Okay well
The First Amendment is a fundamental right, applied to the states via the 14th Amendment. States have no authority to preempt a fundamental right without a compelling governmental reason. The Supreme Court has already determined in Citizens United that concern over elections corruption is not a compelling reason to preempt the free speech rights of corporations, unions, or other like collective entities.