CE Week #8: “Supreme Court reviewing corporate campaigning Justices could overturn finance restrictions”
David G. Savage / Los Angeles Times September 10, 2009
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court’s conservative bloc sounded poised Wednesday to strike down on free speech grounds a 100-year-old ban against corporations spending large amounts of money to elect or defeat congressional and presidential candidates.
If the justices were to issue such a ruling in the next few months, it could reshape American politics, beginning with the congressional campaign in 2010. Big companies and industries – and possibly unions as well – could fund campaign ads to support or defeat members of Congress.
Since 1907, federal law has prohibited corporations from giving money to candidates. And since 1947, corporations and unions have been barred from spending money on their own to urge voters to elect or defeat federal candidates. Corporate executives, as individuals, can contribute money to a corporate political action committee or PAC, but these amounts are relatively modest compared to the funds available to the corporate treasury.
At least 24 states have similar bans on corporate spending in state races.
All those spending limits have come under growing legal attack from conservatives and libertarians who say the government should not be allowed to set limits on campaign spending and electioneering, even when corporate or union money is in play.
Three justices – Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas – have already said they would overrule past decisions that had upheld federal and state restrictions on corporate election spending. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito also have said they favor free speech over the campaign funding limits. But they have not yet said whether they would go along and give corporations a free speech right to spend on campaign ads.
That was the issue before the court Wednesday. It was a rare re-argument in a seemingly narrow case of a small nonprofit group called Citizens United. It had produced a video called “Hillary: The Movie,” which was designed to undercut Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 campaign for the presidency. However, it got tied up in a legal battle with the Federal Election Commission.
Because Citizens United is incorporated and received a small amount of corporate money, the group and its movie came under FEC regulation. Any amount of corporate money can trigger regulatory action under the election laws.
In March, the justices debated whether the law should apply to a nonprofit group that produced a campaign-related video. But rather than decide that narrow question, the justices said in June they would focus instead on whether to say that all corporations, like individuals, have a right to spend freely to elect or defeat candidates.
Washington lawyer Ted Olson, the former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, pressed the justices to rule broadly. “Corporations are persons entitled to protection under the First Amendment,” said Olson, who represented Citizens United.
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., co-sponsors of the 2002 campaign funding law, were in the courtroom and listened intently to the 90-minute argument. The ruling could strike down part of the McCain-Feingold Act that restricted corporate and union-funded election ads in the months before the election.
The court will meet behind closed doors later this week to vote on the case. A decision could come within a few months.
A. I did not know of the Supreme Court’s justification to allow corporate campaign financing. They are saying that by setting limits on corporate financing, they are denying corporations the right of free speech within the First Amendment. I also did not know of the Supreme Court’s stance on this issue. Three justices have already made a firm stance for corporate campaign financing and two others, including Chief Justice John Roberts, favor free speech over funding limits.
B. I do see how the Supreme Court is justifying the claim the corporations have a right to finance campaigns: it is within their First Amendment right of free speech. However, I do not think corporations should be allowed to do such a thing. If this happened, politicians would become more of an advertising scheme for the corporations than actual running candidates. In the past election, Obama would have become the fresh face of Pepsi and McCain would have become the golden-boy of Coke. Uneducated voters would vote for their preferred soda company rather than their preferred policies. It could also result in corruption, with the corporations holding the money and thus the politician’s puppet strings as well. “Money is the mother’s milk of politics” after all. The concept of excess campaign spending is frequently criticized, so why condone it even more with corporations that could essentially make elections a mere beauty pageant?
C. Are other finance reforms being considered along with corporate campaign financing reforms? For example, are the limits from other contributors (like PACs) being reevaluated? Also, how are politician’s responding to this proposal?
D. Connection: We learned about soft money, which are political contributions for party-building expenses at the grassroots level, like party advertising. Since it was a loophole found in the Federal Election Campaign Act, there is no limit to the contributions.
A. The Supreme Court is debating wether or not to remove the ban on corporations ability to spend money on political campaigns. Four justices have already vouched in favor of the removal. A group called Citizens United made a video denouncing Sen. Hillary Clinton but it was prevented from being released on the condition that it had recieved funding from corporations. This brought up the question can non-profit organizations use corporate money to sponsor political videos. Instead of saying yes or no the Supreme Court is now considering removing the ban on corportations.
B. Despite corporations being run by individuals who are protected under the first amendment the corporation is made of many individuals with differing political views. For executives to spend the money earned by the employees and intended for the company elsewhere is not fair, especially if those employees disagree with how the money would be spent. More importantly, politicians would start campaigning to the corporations for money instead of the electorate as they should be. This would disrupt the current system and create an imbalance between the power of the corporations and the people. I think that the ban was and still is a good idea that shouldn’t be removed.
C. Does the constitution really protect corporations? Corporations aren’t individuals it’s a group of organized individuals that work together to accomplish something. Without the ban executives could spend the money on which ever candidate they chose while the little people of the corporation have no say in how the money they helped earn is spent. Individuals in the corporation still have the right to supply money to which ever politician they choose, even though s/he doesn’t have has much as the company’s treasury.
Extension: Political consultant David Bossie said “to accept Senators McCain and Feingold’s remarks on the Senate floor yesterday at face value would require an objective listener to turn a blind eye to the facts at hand. Senator Feingold took an alarmist tone, warning that elections would somehow turn into corporate sponsored events like a NASCAR race. But that statement belies a willful ignorance of elections, such as the one about to take place in Virginia, in which corporate spending is legal and no allegations of any impropriety have been made.” He does have a good point, if we look to states in which corporations are allowed to freely spend money we can see that it hasn’t turned into a corporate sponsored event. Corporations would give candidates money to campaign but the candidates are campaigning to the people. Since the general public are the ones who decide their future it would be ignorant for them to ignore the general public. But the results in Virginia may not be comprable to the presidential election seeing as it takes a more significant amount of money to run for president and the presidential seat is more important than a state state.
A. I learned that stopping corporate contributions to campaigns predated the Federal Election Campaign Act and that people are trying to change the act in the name of upholding free speech.
B. After being initially confused about the point this article was trying to get across, I have come to understand that they are trying to allow companies themselves to fund their own campaign ads. Right now only Political Action Committees can make ads as long as they are independent expenditures, meaning they cannot be directly related to any candidate’s campaign (Willie Horton ad). I personally don’t have a problem with this change because corporations and unions are still not directly contributing money to campaigns. If there was a change to the Federal Election Campaign Act that did allow direct contributions from corporations and unions, I would be against it because of the obvious reason that the candidate would be beholden to the donator. As long as they are only changing this part, there is no issue. It does make sense though that this would be a free speech issue and I am surprised it hasn’t come up earlier, considering Buckley v. Valeo addressed one free speech issue already: independent contributions to one’s own campaign. I am curious to see if independently funded advertisements will eventually outnumber candidate’s own ads.
C. What other sections of the Federal Election Campaign Act could be changed because of freedom of speech or similar issues?
D. Currently, corporations and unions have to from Political Action Committees in order to make ads. The type of ads made by PACs and, if the restrictions are overturned, corporations are called issue advocacy ads which cannot use the words “vote for”, “elect”, “support”, or “oppose”. These types of ads originate from the use of soft money. If the restriction is overturned, the McCain-Feingold act will be mostly nullified.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issue_advocacy_ads