Is anybody else watching this?
Citizens United and why we can't pretend things are fair anymore
“All great things bring about their own destruction” Fredrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, pg. 161
In 2010, campaign finance changed forever. On January 10th, the United States Supreme Court issued their ruling on the controversial Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which they found that laws restricting the political spending of corporations and unions are inconsistent with the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The majority held that the prohibition of all independent expenditures by corporations and unions in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act violated the First Amendment. To put it bluntly, this was very bad for the average American. Corporations had free reign to spend as much money as they wanted to influence elections.
So, what’s an independent expenditure? According to the Federal Election Commission, an independent expenditure (also known as a super PAC) is a monetary expenditure for a communication that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate and which is not made in coordination with any candidate or their campaign or political party. Independent expenditures are not subject to any amount ($$$) limitations. They’re like PACs that can accumulate unlimited corporate money. They’re technically not amassed and executed in coordination with any candidate, but since their function is to assist in the election of a candidate and/or disparage that candidate's opponents, we’re really on the knife-edge of “not made in coordination.” If you have ever seen an advertisement like this, you’ve seen the sort of advertisement that independent expenditures fund.
If you’re asking yourself, “how the hell does the First Amendment grant corporations the right to spend an unlimited amount of money on an election?” I think you’re asking the right questions. The reason is pretty straightforward: the Citizens United decision, relying heavily on the concept of “corporate personhood,” guaranteed that corporations have the same right to make political contributions as you and me.
Corporate personhood is the notion (and established legal doctrine) that corporations, just like American citizens, have rights endowed by the United States government. Namely, the freedom of speech, which permits them to contribute an unlimited amount of money to independent expenditures because political contributions are considered to be expressive of a viewpoint, namely a political viewpoint, which cannot be restricted according to the First Amendment.
If that answer is unsatisfying to you, that means you’re still with me. There seems to be something very wrong with granting Tesla a similar level of personhood as you and me, especially considering that Tesla is a multi billion dollar company and you and I work at an Arby’s. Even so, you may still be asking, “if Tesla’s right to personhood comes from the First Amendment, and the First Amendment is good because it guarantees the freedom of speech, then that’s just something we’re going to have to live with, right?” I’m not so sure.
If the First Amendment permits corporations to make unlimited contributions to independent expenditures, that effectively guarantees that politicians with the largest corporate sponsors usually get elected over those who don’t. This has been proven over time: candidates who are able to raise more money are significantly more likely to get elected, and those who do not are significantly less likely to win. The biggest donors in America are corporate donors who give to independent expenditures. Therefore, you need corporate donors to win elections most of the time.
Consider an instance in which a politician holds views that are not in line with the typical viewpoints of corporate board members and CEOs. Would you suppose that person is likely to get corporate endorsements or independent expenditures set-up for his campaign? It seems pretty doubtful to me. With these IE’s, corporations have unlimited access to purchasing media campaigns, advertisements, and activist protestors to ruin the lives and campaigns of their political opponents. On its face, this would at the very least create a status quo of pro-corporate interests in Washington D.C and at the worst create a world in which corporations decide who gets elected in America.
And this is EXACTLY what the FEC was designed to prevent. Their mission statement reads as follows:
The FEC's mission is to protect the integrity of the federal campaign finance process by providing transparency and fairly enforcing and administering federal campaign finance laws.
Citizens United undermined the FEC’s mission statement and was a disaster for the integrity of federal campaign finance. But how, legally speaking, does this decision run afoul of the First Amendment? Citizens United produces a “chilling effect” on the freedom of speech of American politicians running for office.
A “chilling effect" is an effect that deters the free speech rights protected by the First Amendment as a result of government laws or actions that appear to target expression. This occurs when the government passes a law that does not expressly limit the freedom of expression, but does as a result of the climate that law creates. And that’s what the Citizens United decision does, it creates an atmosphere in which politicians can’t express opinions that run afoul of the corporate hegemonic sphere that currently controls Washington. That’s why you can’t get elected if your platform is one that advocates for reducing the corporate stranglehold on Congress (see the DNC’s derailment of the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign).
Lastly, and perhaps this is a stretch, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say this: corporate personhood is bullshit. Corporations should not have the same rights that American citizens do and to extend these rights to them is wrong. This results in things like de facto election tampering, wealth extractions, and the prevention of real political progress in the United States. Their status of personhood places unrestricted power in the hands of the corporate class, destroying the ability of politicians who care about the average American to run for public office. At the very least, person or not, corporations shouldn’t have the right to donate to IEs.
I don’t know how anyone is going to make real change in Washington when the corporate and donor class control America, but repealing Citizens United would be a great start. However, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon, so maybe turn off the news, touch some grass, and give your mom a hug. After all, it’s Mother’s Day tomorrow.
🫡