Legal Question in Business Law in New York

Re: Antitrust Laws and Political Parties

Annoyed with politics in the US, are we?

You've pretty much analyzed it. Antitrust applies only to commerce (federal antitrust applies to interstate commerce; state antitrust laws cover intrastate commerce) and the political parties in the US do not engage in commerce.

Nor will the laws change to cover politics; remember that it's the legislators, politicians all, who propose and pass statutory law. Casting the political parties to the tender mercies of the Sherman Act and Sarbanes Oxley would make their political careers much more difficult to run.

I suppose a court could rule that antitrust applies to politics, but that would be a sweeping piece of judicial activism and judges find judicial activism on that level repugnant. Their job is to interpret law and apply it to the case at hand, not to make sweeping changes to the law without a really major reason. This doesn't say they've never done it; they have, but only when the law as it currently existed did way more harm than good. Examples: Brown v. Board of Ed made school segregation laws unconstitutional; Miranda v. Arizona made arrests without the reading of rights to the defendant illegal; Erie Railroad v. Tompkins forever changed the face of personal jurisdicion. However, that sort of judicial sweep happens only very, very rarely. I know of no case currently pending that could redefine antitrust to include politics.

Good question. Thanks.

THE INFORMATION PRESENTED HERE IS GENERAL IN NATURE AND IS NOT INTENDED, NOR SHOULD IT BE CONSTRUED, AS LEGAL ADVICE. THIS POSTING DOES NOT CREATE ANY ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN US. FOR SPECIFIC ADVICE ABOUT YOUR PARTICULAR SITUATION, CONSULT YOUR ATTORNEY.