Longreads

How the Supreme Court dismantled campaign-finance reform—and how government missteps in the Citizens United case inadvertently aided in its undoing:

"Alito wanted to push Stewart down a slippery slope. Since McCain-Feingold forbade the broadcast of 'electronic communications' shortly before elections, this was a case about movies and television commercials. What else might the law regulate? 'Do you think the Constitution required Congress to draw the line where it did, limiting this to broadcast and cable and so forth?' Alito said. Could the law limit a corporation from 'providing the same thing in a book? Would the Constitution permit the restriction of all those as well?'

"Yes, Stewart said: 'Those could have been applied to additional media as well.'

"The Justices leaned forward."

“I watch my bride who, in doing the same things, when she started her organization, she gives it 24/7 every day, in defense of liberty. You know, and maybe that’s why we’re equally young and we love being with each other because we love the same things; we believe in the same things. So, with my wife and the people around me what I see unreinforced is that we are focused on defending liberty. So, I admire her and I love her for that because it keeps me going.” Then, concluding his speech, he said, “My bride is with me, Virginia Thomas, and some of you may know her. But the reason that I specifically bring it up: there is a price to pay today for standing in defense of your Constitution.”

Nearly a decade ago, Fred Wilpon, the chairman and chief executive of the New York Mets, had his first meeting with the architects of what would become Citi Field, the team’s new ballpark, in Queens. “The first day the architects came to the site, they started saying blah, blah, blah, and I said to them, ‘Let me tell you how this is going to work,’ ” Wilpon told me recently. “ ‘The front of the building is going to look like Ebbets Field. And it’s going to have a rotunda—just like at Ebbets.’ And then I said, ‘Guess what. Here are the plans for Ebbets Field.’ And I handed them over."