As the 2012 elections approach, do not be surprised if you see candidates wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the words “Buy Microsoft” or “Drink Coca-Cola” at official campaign events.
These shirts would not just be casual choices of wardrobe. Thanks to recent rulings by the Supreme Court of the United States, corporations can now theoretically buyout politicians, and it will be legal.
It is great news if you’re a part of a wealthy organization; you now have more political clout than any other group in the country—except perhaps other wealthy organizations. Feel free to buy airtime for attack ads, or even rent huge event spaces and invite your favorite candidate to speak there.
In two landmark rulings over the past two years, the Supreme Court of the United States has lifted bans on the amount of money that corporations can spend on politically charged advertising. A court dominated by the appointees of Republican presidents has opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate influence in politics.
In 2012, the gloves will be off.
The rulings overturned a major bipartisan act passed in 2002 that put limits on corporate spending for political campaigns. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) was designed to tighten federal control over campaign contributions from corporations and restrict direct attacks on candidates through advertising 60 days before a general election. The BCRA was first challenged in front of the Supreme Court in 2003. That Court upheld the act’s constitutionality. Since then, four new, mostly conservative-leaning justices have taken seats, and the BCRA was struck down in January 2010.
The case that beat the BCRA is called Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, or Citizens United for short. Citizens United is a conservative non-profit organization that in 2008 wished to broadcast a film critical of Hillary Clinton, then running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Under the BCRA, Citizens United could not advertise the film using Clinton’s image. The Act forbid biased broadcasts 30 days before an election in an attempt to keep voters from being swayed by unfair claims about candidates.
Citizens United claimed that the Act violated their First Amendment right to free speech. The case reached the Supreme Court in January 2010, where in a 5-4 decision along conservative-liberal lines, the court ruled that the U.S. government has no right to ban or cap political spending by corporations. This ruling overturns years of legal precedents, and shows how the increasingly right-leaning court continues to flout judicial neutrality in favor of political biases.
Lax campaign finance laws actually became front-page news when the Federal Election Commission (FEC) allowed Comedy Central comedian Stephen Colbert to form his own Super Political Action Committee (Super PAC).
Political action committees have existed for several years before the Citizens United decision. These are private groups made up of anyone, including individuals, corporations and labor unions, whose goal is to raise money to help elect a certain candidate to federal office (like senators or presidents). The money they raise must be reported to the FEC.
Super PACs like Stephen Colbert’s came about as a result of Citizens United. Super PACs, unlike regular PACs, can give candidates unlimited amounts of money. That means Super PACs can spend millions and millions of dollars every week, putting the pressure on all candidates to raise as much money as possible.
The race for who can persuade the most voters to vote has become a race to persuade the most people to give money. Candidates who do not have as many Super PACs (there’s also no limit to how many Super PACs can support a single candidate, and candidates themselves cannot form Super PACs) will be left in the dust.
In late June of this year, Colbert appeared in front of the FEC to argue that, because of the 2010 Citizens United decision, he has as much right as any candidate or organization to raise and spend unlimited money on the 2012 elections.
Colbert’s joke suddenly became much less funny when the truth about campaign finance laws emerged. Almost unanimously, the FEC allowed Colbert to form a Super PAC, and use his show to ask for donations from his viewers.
Thankfully, the FEC stuck to a fairly narrow interpretation of Citizens United. Some people were worried that the FEC would allow television networks like Comedy Central to use their programs to raise money for political purposes (like Super PACs) without having to disclose spending. But the FEC ruled that the media company Viacom, which produces Colbert’s show, would only have to disclose spending if it gave aid to Colbert outside of his show (such as ads it produces that would be broadcast on other networks).
It seems that the Federal Election Commission is more concerned about equality and fairness than our own Supreme Court.
The new campaign finance rules do make it easier for someone, even a non-serious candidate like Colbert, to raise money and awareness over a political cause. You just have to have a television show first.
There are now over 100 Super PACs in existence, belonging to people such as 2012 presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney (a Republican front-runner who is supported by at least three Super PACs), Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul.
Within a year of the Citizens United decision, conservative Super PACs raised over $35 million and liberals $28 million to spend on the 2010 elections, according to CBS News. In 2010, Republicans swept the House of Representatives, and Democrats lost many seats but maintain a slight majority in the Senate. The impact could be even more prominent next year.
The second major decision in campaign finance law came in late June 2011, around the time when Colbert was forming his Super PAC. The court overturned a 1998 anti-corruption law in Arizona that had been challenged by several wealthy politicians as unfair to their own right to political free speech. Under the Arizona law, candidates could choose to limit their personal campaign spending to $500, and then they would be awarded grants from the state to match their privately funded rivals.
The same five justices that overturned The BCRA last year continued to vote along partisan lines in this decision.
At least five other states, including Florida, had similar public-financing options. Those options were also erased under this ruling.
Opponents of the Arizona law were worried that publicly funded candidates would outspend their privately funded rivals thanks to the government’s intervention. But the law did not give governments the ability to outspend anyone; they could only match (often not even dollar-for-dollar) the funds already raised by the privately funded opponent.
No government could deny public funds to a candidate who accepted those spending limits, regardless of political party.
“So [the opponents of the Arizona law] are making a novel argument,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan in her official dissent, “that Arizona violated their First Amendment rights by disbursing funds to other speakers even though they could have received (but chose to spurn) the same financial assistance. Some people might call that chutzpah.”
Candidates who are not as well-funded by private interests as their competitors now have no other fundraising options. Some potential candidates might even choose not to run for office if they know that they cannot outspend their competitors. This is plainly a suppression of free speech, approved by the Supreme Court. Combined with Citizens United, a corporation can now effectively buy an election for a candidate, if it can outspend the opposition.
It is, in fact, unfair for candidates who choose not to pander to private interests and who accept public funding to be punished. Governments can be held by law to give money to candidates of any political party, regardless of whether the ruling government agrees with that party or not. Corporations cannot. How is obliging governments to give money to candidates regardless of political bias unfair?
Justice Samuel Alito (a conservative who voted in the majority in both Citizens United and the Arizona case) views unfairness as follows: “Different candidates have different strengths. Some are wealthy; others have wealthy supporters who are willing to make large contributions. Some are celebrities; some have the benefit of a well-known family name.”
Other candidates have none of these, but that’s irrelevant because this court’s campaign rulings essentially prevent such unprivileged people from running for office.
The justices in the majority vote claimed that their rulings protected the First Amendment right of free speech for corporations. With these rulings, the court has decided that the right to free speech of corporations should be equal to that of individuals.
The free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to our Constitution forbids the “abridgement” of speech. State governments like Arizona’s do not abridge or take away money which candidates have legally earned. Instead, Arizona’s law “subsidized” speech, wrote Justice Kagan. Arizona’s law encouraged free speech in politics, without preventing anyone from spending money.
The conservative majority of the court has made it apparent that they do think all corporations’ voices should be heard on an equal level with American citizens. But corporations are not citizens, as Justice Anthony Stevens pointed out in his official dissent. Corporations cannot vote or run for office. Why should they deserve free speech equal to that of a voting citizen of the United States? Corporations owe loyalty only to themselves and their profits, not to politicians or the good of the country. Nor can corporations be held responsible by anyone but their shareholders. A government can be held accountable by everyone.
Chief Justice John Roberts—like Alito, appointed to the Court by President George W. Bush—has written that the U.S. government has no “compelling” interest in “leveling the playing field” among political candidates. One wonders why the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a body that is meant to be the non-partisan part of the checks-and-balances system that makes up our government, thinks that the government has no interest in assuring free and fair elections for all candidates. Does he think that all Americans’ voices should be heard, regardless of how much money they have?
Money has become increasingly important to the success of political campaigns in the last several decades. Opponents to the Arizona public finance act claimed that their free speech was penalized when they raised private donations, which would trigger government grants to their opponents. But more money should not equal more right to free speech.
By allowing wealthy anonymous donors to fund support and attack ads, the Supreme Court has opened the 2012 elections to a level of bloodthirstiness this country may have never seen. Why? Chief Justice Roberts made his position clear when he said that governments have no interest in leveling the playing field between candidates. What he is saying is political Darwinism: the strongest—in this case, the wealthiest—will survive.
Where does that leave poorer candidates, or even poorer citizens who wish to have a political voice? If the meager campaign contribution of an average citizen can just be outspent a hundred times over by a corporate supporter of the opposition, what becomes of the voter’s voice?
The Roberts court is changing the definition of free speech in dangerous ways. If money equals free speech, we will have lost all the effort that was made over the centuries to extend the right of free speech to all Americans, regardless of race or gender or wealth.
Equally important is that the Supreme Court has become a partisan body that wishes to twist laws to suit their own views, rather than neutrally interpreting laws as they are written. Justice Kagan wrote that she could find no Constitutional principle backed the Court’s decision in the Arizona case. What laws are the conservative majority interpreting, then, if not the Constitution?
The Supreme Court exists to keep the partisan nature of our democracy in check—but who can keep the partisans in the Court in check, if not their sole duty to the Constitution?
Perhaps Stephen Colbert will be the only voice left for those of us without a production company to back us up. Colbert has done what satirists do best: he speaks the truth so that we may see the ridiculousness of it. As he left his FEC hearing, Colbert leaned out of his car and called to his supporters, “Is there any more cash? That’s it, thank you! Ball it up and throw it to me!”The
Alexander:
a) I disagree that money should be confused with free speech and allowed to be a corrupting influence in our political process.
b) I don’t believe we have politicians that represent our nation’s best interest when they have to first represent their financial backers
c) Besides issues of logic, your writing style is unnecessarily drawn out with little actual content.
I find it interesting when they put an article on here and do not put an author’s name. Anyways, this article is trash. Quit crying about it and do something. Your claims that the Supreme Court is partisan only suits you in this instance- or any other you don’t agree with. I am sure there have been occasions where they decided the way YOU wanted, and you didn’t claim partisanship.
Also, I wouldn’t use Kagan in your arguments as she is pretty much a clown.
A preposterous article. It prompts one to wonder (a) whether the author, in fact, read the relevant majority opinions in full and (b) whether the irony of preaching political neutrality in a clearly biased article is lost on the author.
The author seems immediately predisposed to consider rights in a strained, unreasonable way. Essentially, the argument (against ‘Cititzens United’) amounts to: “if you can yell louder then me, then my free speech is trampled.” In a free society, there is no such thing as ‘less’ free speech – well, unless you count businesses not being able to broadcast political support prior to the ‘Citizens United’ decision. The author seems reluctant to make clear (indeed, sometimes appearing to suggest the opposite) that the decision did NOT strke down a provision that outlawed unlimited campaign contributions – the ‘Citizens’ decision merely made it legal for businesses to broadcast political commentaries.
Perhaps a thought experiment would be well-posed to the author. Let’s presume that there are 10 voters in a given society. Further, let’s presume that 1 of the voters has earned enough money so as to purchase a megaphone. Does this voter stating his political views loudly into a megaphone somehow trample the free speech of the other candidates? It seems odd to presume so, but this is the type of argument that the article appears to favor.
Besides issues of logic, I also take offense with points such as the author citing Justice Kagan’s dissent as “no Constitutional principle backed the Court’s decision,” then immediately jumping to the sophistic suggestion that, therefore, Justice Roberts was not relying on the Constitution. This argument is extremely misleading, as it seems to miss the point of a Supreme Court being comprised of several justices who often find contrary points on a given topic. A dissenting opinion that disagrees with a concurring one does not somehow invalidate the reasoning of the concurring by negation. To propose such a thing is preposterous, dishonest, and, frankly, insulting to the intelligence of the reader.