dictionary

Charles Bierbauer: U.S. Supreme Court highlights

Charles Bierbauer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court handed down six opinions Monday to start off the final week of the 2000-2001 term.

CNN Senior Washington Correspondent Charles Bierbauer was at the court and discussed the highlights with CNN.

CNN: Tell us first about the court decision regarding campaign spending.

BIERBAUER: The court took up the question of coordinated campaign spending, when a political party, in this case the Republicans in Colorado, coordinated their spending with their candidates. The court said you cannot do that, unless you follow campaign spending limits. This harks back to the landmark ruling known as Buckley v. Valeo, in which the court said it is permissible to limit campaign contributions as a hedge against corruption while it was not permissible to limit campaign spending. What the court has said today in a 5-4 opinion is that those spending measures by the party amount to contributions to the candidate so they said those can be limited.

IN-DEPTH • Justice Profiles • Supreme Court Home Page

LEGAL RESOURCES   FindLaw Supreme Court Center   • Court History   • The Justices   • Landmark Decisions FindLaw opinion database: Supreme Court opinions from 1893-2002 Search by party: Search by full-text:

CNN: The court also waded into the issue of the Internet and copyright protection, what did they have to say there?

BIERBAUER: The court has, step by step, been venturing into cyber-law. This case involves copyright protection for free-lance authors who had sued the New York Times, Time Inc. and other organizations saying that it was fine for those organizations to publish their writings in the first place, but not to continue publishing them, specifically on large Internet databases. The courts agreed with the authors saying that the databases themselves do not amount to simple revisions of the day's news so the authors in this case should be compensated.

CNN: A third decision involved mushrooms, could you tell us about that?

BIERBAUER: Free speech for mushroom growers. It relates to these sort of quasi-governmental commodities groups of which there are several dealing with in this particular instance The Mushroom Council, by which mushroom growers are assessed annual dues and The Mushroom Council does generic commercials for mushrooms.

United Foods objected to that, saying it was an infringement on their commercial free speech. They want to advertise their own mushrooms independently, and not get caught up in the generic. The Supreme Court said they could do that, saying the mandatory ads did violate the First Amendment provisions dealing with commercial free speech. So a victory in this particular case for the First Amendment and for mushroom growers.

CNN: The court is also determining what cases it will hear next term and it decided not to hear an affirmative action case in Texas, tell us why and what that case is.

BIERBAUER: Well, why is a little bit hard to do, because when a court denies hearing of a case they simply have a single line on a long list of denials that says "Texas v. Hopwood denied." Cheryl Hopwood was a white student who sought application to the University of Texas Law School. She was denied and sued saying it was reverse discrimination and the courts have held in her favor.

The University of Texas System has since changed some of its admissions requirements, but they were appealing this case. By denying it, it leaves the law in place in Texas and in the circuit involved there. What it suggests is that the court is waiting for a better affirmative action case to rule more broadly, and the case we're watching most closely comes out of the University of Michigan but it is not on the court's table yet. So, they've held off on affirmative action for now.