Friday, April 09, 2010

Money Is Property

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, official portraitMoney is property; it is not speech. Speech has the power to inspire volunteers to perform a multitude of tasks on a campaign trail, on a battleground, or even on a football field. Money, meanwhile, has the power to pay hired laborers to perform the same tasks. It does not follow, however, that the First Amendment provides the same measure of protection to the use of money to accomplish such goals as it provides to the use of ideas to achieve the same results.

-- John Paul Stevens (20 April, 1920), American jurist, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1975, concurring, Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U.S. 377 (2000); Stevens today announced his retirement from the court

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