Talk:American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock

There is one case with two names

Well, the section on the Supreme Court overrule has a main article link to 2011 term per curiam opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States#American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock. The per curium opinions article is by its very nature a list of summaries and no case on that page is a main article - this is the main article. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 03:10, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

We're speaking past each other. This is the main article for the case as a whole. The per curiam list is the main article for 2011 term SCOTUS per curiam opinions, hence the main article for the section in this article about that SCOTUS opinion and only about that SCOTUS opinion. postdlf (talk) 03:20, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

A distinction without a difference, in my view. In fact, most of the details about the court ruling belong here, not in the per curium article. If there is anything there that's not here, we need to fix it. People reading about a court case expect to see the whole story, and not have the article arbitrarily end when it enters a different court. If we had an actual stand-alone article on the US court's role, I'm fine with a main article link, but we don't, we just have a short summary. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 03:23, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Rarity of 5-4 summary reversals

I wrote the [Wolf PAC article]. In the process, I did the original research on the rarity of this type of summary reversal via a search of the Lexis Nexis Supreme Court Lawyers Edition database (a paid database to which I cannot link). I realized that I neglected to include the conclusion to that research in the article, as I published it quickly before I had completed the research. Since Wikipedia relies on secondary sources, it is important that the conclusion that I am citing be in the article or it is not reliable enough for Wikipedia. I originally used the article as a source for something that is really better cited to the original decision and I agree with that change, but as it now says "citation needed" for the statement that this is the first such case since 1968, I am adding back the reference to the Wolf PAC article, which I amended to include the conclusion to my original research. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.249.224.254 (talk) 15:14, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Why should your blog be considered a reliable source? It looks self-published. Did it have editorial oversight? Are you an established expert whose work has been previously published? postdlf (talk) 17:20, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm a lawyer working on the issue and representing the organization. We were following the case and considering submitting an amicus brief, had the Court accepted arguments. I am licensed and qualified to do the legal research for which I cite my own article. The article itself was written at the request of the President of Wolf PAC and reviewed, primarily for style and social media promotion, by the editor of the blog. I don not claim to be unbiased, but I cited the article for a fact that can be checked in the record by any lawyer, not for opinion or analysis. The fact cited is that this is the first 5-4 summary reversal with so little analysis since 1968. I arrived at that fact by performing a search of all Supreme Court cases in which the disposition was summary reversal and there was a dissent, then I checked each one in reverse chronological order for cases with 4 dissenters. Very few cases met that criteria. There was one last year, then in the early to mid 1980's there were a few, and a handful in the 1970's. In most cases at least one of the dissenters was on a technical ground, not because of a dispute over the ruling, but every one had substantial analysis until I reached the 1968 case I cited. If you have a more reliable source for this fact, feel free to change the cite. If I had another source, I wouldn't have bothered to do the research myself.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.249.224.254 (talk) 21:04, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Whether you're actually a licensed attorney or not isn't the question (I am as well in the real world). I have no way of verifying that, either on here, nor from the Wolf PAC site itself, and even assuming that you are that doesn't guarantee that your research or conclusions are valid or (no offense intended) that you are even a competent lawyer, let alone recognized and respected in your field as having expertise in constitutional law or SCOTUS practice. We can't trust or assume your qualifications when no established and reliable news outlet, university, publisher, or other such recognized organization has vetted your writing. So I don't think your blog passes our criteria at Wikipedia:Reliable sources, specifically those for self-published sources. And your review and comparisons with past opinions could come out differently depending on who did it, as there is inevitably a degree of subjectivity in measuring the "amount" of analysis contained within a court opinion. I don't think there's a way out of that being Wikipedia:Original research rather than an obvious conclusion without the legitimacy of having been published by a reliable source. Given that we are talking about a SCOTUS opinion, commentary on it (and comparisons with its historical antecedents) by actual reliable sources should not be hard to come by, even if we have to wait for journal articles or other non-news sources to eventually be published. postdlf (talk) 12:50, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

No offense taken. I presume that a source that better meets wikipedia's definition will, at some point in the not too distant future, note the same fact. So far, to my knowledge, my article is the best available source for what seems to me to be a pretty important fact in understanding the controversy over this case and the reasons many people are angry and have a low opinion of the Supreme Court. Hence, I would argue that the fact should stand with the source, but perhaps a note saying that a better source should be sought. As for subjectivity, this opinion was 1 paragraph and cited nothing but Citizens United, the statute, the Montana case, and the Constitution. The only one of those sources on which it provided any commentary was Citizens United, for which it made a statement of the holding in the case with no explanation or analysis on which to base that statement. There were no other 5-4 summary decisions that were even close to that until 1968. The closest one, if you want a comparison, was Department of Motor Vehicles v. Rios, 410 U.S. 425 (1973). That contained 2 paragraphs of analysis by the majority, citing a dozen cases and compared and analyzed them. The 1968 case was just a single sentence, clearly even less analysis than the current case. While there is a lot of subjectivity in the law, this was a pretty clear result from the criteria as stated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.249.224.254 (talk) 15:20, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Problem is, it simply isn't a matter of leaving yours in until we find a better source, it's that your source doesn't meet the minimum threshold for reliable sources. Which means that the content that was cited to it needs to be removed. Particularly because it seems to me that the relative brevity of the Court's opinion is being emphasized as a point of criticism, as if to say that the Court failed to perform a thorough analysis, which is a POV argument (the dissent is also short, but what of it?). This is tangential, but another view is that the Court (or five members of it, at least) was deliberately sending a message that as it has already decided these issues, there is nothing new to say, and the lower court's criticism of Citizens United is moot. Anyway, that's the kind of commentary I'd expect to find out there from recognized legal scholars, and a relevant comparison might be with past instances of the Court believing state courts or lower federal courts are trying to ignore or evade SCOTUS rulings, or merely failed to apply them. But that's all kind of tangential at this point, because the content needs to be removed in any event. postdlf (talk) 16:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Should this article be reordered putting the Supreme Court case first?

There was obviously more significant analysis in the Montana State Supreme Court, and their opinion made bigger news, but it seems like the highest Court decision should come first and then review the prior history. It should also probably be changed so that American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock is the main name with Western Tradition as the alternate that redirects there, since American Tradition was the name as used in the Supreme Court case. I don't really have a strong opinion on this, I just thought that might be more appropriate. I'll leave it to others to agree or disagree and make the change or not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.249.224.254 (talk) 15:26, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I think the story is really about the state's attempt to defend the state law even after Citizens United, and the Montana Supreme Court's pithy opinion criticizing that ruling and attempting to reconcile an alternative outcome based on the record in this case. The SCOTUS opinion was merely the final resolution and is insubstantial as a document in and of itself, so the article should really be organized around the lawsuit as a whole being the subject rather than just the SCOTUS opinion. postdlf (talk) 16:28, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Sfieldman (talk) 18:20, 5 August 2019 (UTC)This has become a famous case and it is ALWAYS referenced with the Supreme Court decision when discussed, not the State case. The case is commonly talked about in reference to how the Supreme Court overturns state campaign finance laws, not how States have challenged the Citizens United decision. It should absolutely be switched so that Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Montana redirects to American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock and not the other way around. A Google Search of both case names using quotations and restricting it to the last year shows 18 results for "American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock" compared to 1 for Western Tradition and that one is a wikipedia page that uses the old name so that it will correctly link to this article. If you remove the restriction of 1 year, you get 33 results for the Western Tradition case name (when using quotes). Many of those are wikipedia pages, articles that were written before the SCOTUS decision, or technical writing that often uses both case names. For the SCOTUS name of the case, you get 1,670 results.

Requested move 6 August 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. There's a consensus for move. (non-admin closure) – Ammarpad (talk) 10:46, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

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Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Montana → American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock – The new name, which is currently a redirect to this page, is the name for this case when it was appealed to the Supreme Court. This has become a famous case and it is ALWAYS referenced with the Supreme Court decision when discussed, not the name used in the State Court system. The case is commonly talked about in reference to how the Supreme Court overturns state campaign finance laws, not how States have challenged the Citizens United decision. It should absolutely be switched so that Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Montana redirects to American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock and not the other way around. A Google Search of both case names using quotations and restricting it to the last year shows 18 results for "American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock" compared to 1 for Western Tradition and that one is a wikipedia page that uses the old name so that it will correctly link to this article. If you remove the restriction of 1 year, you get 33 results for the Western Tradition case name (when using quotes). Many of those are wikipedia pages, articles that were written before the SCOTUS decision, or technical writing that often uses both case names. For the SCOTUS name of the case, you get 1,670 results. Similar results appear if you leave off the "inc." in both case names. Sfieldman (talk) 01:11, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support. The U.S. Supreme Court case name should be used. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:01, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Ultimately, the most notable aspect of a case that reaches the Supreme Court will usually be the outcome in the Supreme Court. bd2412 T 16:53, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.