First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti
Case Date: 05/05/1978
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First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765 (1978), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that corporations had a First Amendment right to make contributions in order to attempt to influence political processes. In his opinion, Justice Lewis Powell ruled that a Massachusetts criminal statute prohibiting the expenditure of corporate funds for "influencing or affecting" voters' opinions infringed on corporations' "protected speech in a manner unjustified by a compelling state interest" as he put it.
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