January 21, 2011 9:44AM # Citizens United Turns One By [Caleb O. Brown](https://www.cato.org/people/caleb-o-brown) --- SHARE The Supreme Court majority in *Citizens United* asserted plainly that the federal government’s powers are few and defined in the realm of political speech. The decision has since been cast as one that does little more than give “[corporations and unions the freedom to spend as much as they like to support or attack candidates](http://www.npr.org/2011/01/21/133083209/a-year-later-citizens-united-reshapes-politics).” Of course, the stakes were far higher. As the government’s attorney asserted *during* the initial oral argument, the Federal Election Commission retained the authority to ban the sale of certain books (e‑books included) in the weeks leading up to an election, a fact opponents of *Citizens United* rarely mention. Shortly after that oral argument, Austin Bragg and I made a short video with Steve Simpson of the [Institute for Justice](http://www.ij.org), Allison Hayward of George Mason University School of Law (and now of the Center for Competitive Politics) and [John Samples](https://www.cato.org/people/john-samples), director of the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).