Last week's State of the Union address had lawyerly bloggers in the U.S. in overdrive, thanks to evident friction between President Barack Obama and one U.S. Supreme Court justice.
In a move some believe broke with etiquette, Mr. Obama rebuked his top court for its recent decision striking down restrictions on corporate election spending. But then, Mr. Justice Samuel Alito shook his head and apparently mouthed the words "not true," abandoning the usual stone-faced neutrality affected by U.S. Supreme Court justices at a State of the Union.
The judge has since exercised his right to remain silent. But The Wall Street Journal's law blog offers some arcane speculation as to what it really was all about. The President said the Supreme Court had reversed a "century of law" with its decision, which looks correct at first since Congress banned corporations and banks from contributing to election campaigns in 1907.
But the paper's law blog says the provisions the Supreme Court stuck down last month are actually in the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which banned corporations and unions from spending on advertising or other things on behalf of individual candidates.
However, as the Journal's Jess Bravin points out, in all legal questions, there is usually more than one answer. Early U.S. political reforms, passed before radio or television, were often interpreted at the time to mean all expenditures. And 63 years, if you round up, is a century.
On the move Chris Brown, formerly of Osler, Hoskin &Harcourt LLP in Calgary, is the managing partner of a new human resources law practice called Spectrum LLP.
The new firm also has an office in Vancouver. Mr. Brown said it was born of his work with fellow founding lawyer Scott Sweatman, formerly of Blake, Cassels and Graydon LLP, on an Alberta-B.C. government panel on pension reform.
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