PAAT MEMBER UPDATE
Important US Supreme Court Decision

January 21, 2010

PAAT Members

As you are probably aware, the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Citizens United vs. FEC, determined today that corporate independent expenditures could not be banned by federal law. The court left intact the requirements for disclosure and disclaimers in the law, but in effect has thrown out restrictions prohibiting corporate political contributions.

We are in the process of reviewing this decision to determine the scope of its application to the campaign laws in Texas, and will be meeting with various stakeholders in the near future to see if there is a consensus that can be reached as to what this means for corporate expenditures in this election year. Needless to say, this case will have significant ramifications on the myriad of federal and Texas laws and provisions restricting corporate political speech, at a minimum.

You can read the syllabus of the decision, the majority and concurring opinions and the dissents in this 5-4 decision here.

As soon as we have more information to forward or otherwise provide to you, we will be sending it. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to forward to us any summaries or analysis that you come across so we can add it to our database, which we will make available to all our members as we receive it.

Thanks.

j