Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)

Docket No. 08-205 Granted: November 14, 2008 Argued: March 24, 2009 Reargued: September 9, 2009 In 2004, conservative nonprofit organization Citizens United brought a complaint to the Federal Election Commission regarding Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11, a documentary that discussed the events of September 11, 2001 from a perspective unfavorable to George W. Bush. They argued that the advertisements for the film were political advertising, which would bring them within the restrictions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. his law had amended the Federal Election Campaign Act to forbid corporations from funding broadcast advertisements mentioning a candidate 30 days before a primary election or 60 days before a general election. (Bush was running for president again as the incumbent.) The FEC found a lack of evidence to support the allegations and dismissed the complaint, as well as a later complaint alleging that the advertisements violated the Taft-Hartley Act. Since the FEC stated that these rules did not apply to the bona fide production of films for commercial purposes, Citizens United remodeled itself to meet these criteria and began producing documentary films. One of these, a negative documentary on Senator and prospective presidential candidate Hillary Clinton known as Hillary: The Movie, was completed before the 2008 elections. Citizens United aimed to promote it on television and show the film as an on-demand offering on DirecTV. When a federal district court reviewed a challenge to these actions, it found that the advertisements for the documentary violated the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, since the film was essentially a negative commercial against Clinton despite its alleged presentation of objectively accurate facts about her.