Case
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)Chief Justice
John Roberts
Background
Citizens United made a documentary titled "Hillary: The Movie" to be released before the Democratic primaries of 2008. Initially it was ruled that the company couldn't advertise the film before the primaries due to the restrictions set in place by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002, more commonly known as the McCain-Feingold reform bill for its two sponsors. This was to restrict corporations from using their treasury funds to openly campaign for or against candidates in elections.
Synopsis
On the basis of the 1st Amendment, the court overruled two previous rulings (Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and partially overruled McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003)) and overturned the BCRA. The fact that they overruled other decisions was part of what made the decision a shock to many people. It seems laws on this topic go back nearly 100 years, starting when Theodore Roosevelt was president.Vote & Dissenting Opinions
5-4
The conclusion of Justice Stevens, representing the dissenters (taken from the wikipedia page listed at the bottom of this post):
"At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics."
The conclusion of Justice Stevens, representing the dissenters (taken from the wikipedia page listed at the bottom of this post):
"At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics."
Further Discussion
Does this give more weight to corporations than to individual citizens (who are limited to ~$2300, if memory serves correctly)? Even if corporations are restricted from donating directly to candidates, it's not as if a candidate will be unaware of who's putting multiple campaign ads out for them, and remember that during their term. However, do corporations not also deserve freedom of speech? If laws are made in regards to how they can act, shouldn't they also have the ability to speak out about it? I know many would argue they'll fill the airwaves with misinformation and lies for their own benefit, but don't normal people do that also? We don't argue to take away freedom of speech from them.
What will be the role of foreign companies in this? President Obama mentioned in his State of the Union address that this may open the door to foreign companies to play a roll in our campaigns. I'm guessing the entire law was overturned, but could it still be applied to foreign companies? It's not as if they're covered in the Constitution.
Support for this seems to be based entirely on party lines (which obviously isn't surprising) with conservatives arguing it's a blow for free speech, and liberals saying it gives corporations too much power. While corporate power in many instances does give me pause, I think according to the letter of the law, this ruling is probably accurate and in the better long-term interests of American citizens. I don't think this can just be viewed as corporations buying TV commercials around election time, as the implications of it could be far more reaching.
References & Further Reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary:_The_Movie
Posts
As an amendment - the $2300 I was referring to was direct donations to candidates, which corporations still can't do. So it's not a direct comparison.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree with your discussion point, Steve. Given that corporate entities are legally like people, it is within the legal right of a person to have free speech. Legally, this makes sense to me, but morally and economically this is very dangerous. Corporate power facilitates the human corruption which as far as I know the Constitution fails to cover (have to read the bible or Torah for this lesson maybe).
ReplyDeleteI'd also like to say that politics has been corrupt for quite some time and this ruling could easily be construed as simply another small step in the direction of corruption.
I think part of the issue (and rightfully so) is that people are thinking only of major corporations like Monsanto, GM, Coca-Cola, etc. But what about the little corporations that are limited to individual cities? If a major corporation is behaving in a monopolistic fashion, they may want to point it out and endorse a specific candidate that may work on it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, ultimately corporations are run by people. Had they ruled in the other way, would the government be able to restrict any message from a corporation? If so, would books on political topics be banned during election years? What about newspaper endorsements? Those haven't been restricted, either. Typically I don't like those anyway because it's just another format for people to not make their own decision on who to vote for, but I don't think they should be outright eliminated.
One other good point I saw about this topic was that incumbent legislators will likely favor campaign restrictions because it will make it easier for them to stay in power. I could easily see this being the case. You could just as easily label this as corruption.
I have question. Consider Monsanto or the NY Times comes out in support of a candidate next election cycle. The respective corporations donate money and even write articles. What happens if a high ranking board member at Monsanto calls a press conference to announce s/he supports the other candidate despite working for Monsanto? Or what happens if an investigative reporter for NY Times finds some past documents highlighting character flaws in the candidate and wants to write an editorial on it? When these corporations are treated as single entities (a person) then what happens when actually people inside those corporations disagrees? Are they fired?
ReplyDeleteThis is what I think was missed in the ruling. Real people work within the “fake person” and real people have different views. But allowing fake person’s to hold such weight in our society aren’t’ we jeopardizing the real people?
I don't think that really happens. In terms of newspapers, if the NY Times endorses one candidate then discovers a juicy story on that candidate, my guess is they'll care more about the increased sales from that story than they will about contradictions with an editor's endorsement. It'd be pretty piss-poor journalism to completely overlook something like that. I know there are journalist entities now that perhaps would do that, but I don't think the majority would.
ReplyDeleteAnd if somebody at Monsanto publicly announced their support for another candidate then were fired for it, they'd have a pretty strong case for a lawsuit, I would guess. This isn't to say that people should never be afraid about speaking out politically when working for an organization that favors the other side. From what I've heard of the military, the vast majority are Republicans, and you might fall out of favor supporting Democrats. But I don't think this will ever go away in the private or public sector.
Isn't this where the phrase, "Mr. X's views are not necessarily shared by our company..." comes into play?
ReplyDeleteWhere X = some employee of said company.
You mean the standard disclaimer on TV broadcasts, DVD interviews, etc?
ReplyDeleteMy next question is, for a company like Monsanto, which executive gets to make the decision on which candidate to support?
ReplyDeleteIf it is indeed one individual or even two, this ruling gives that person(s) more chances to affect an election outcome than the average citizen.
Will we soon find out companies can cast a vote?