By
Chris Jordan
February 10, 2010
Imagine that you’re at a Mariners game. It’s the top of the seventh, and the home-plate umpire makes an announcement to the crowd.
“I hereby declare that a strikeout consists of four strikes, not three!”
You are outraged and think to yourself, “It’s not the umpire’s job to change the rules!”
Up until the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with you.
“Judges are like umpires,” said Roberts during his confirmation hearing in 2005. “Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them.” That was then.
With its recent decision on the regulation of corporate money in campaigns, the Roberts Court overturned 100 years of law and past court decisions. Instead of applying it, the existing law has been turned on its head in a ruling that will greatly increase corporate power over our elected representatives.
At issue in the case was whether Congress has the power to restrict the use of money spent by unions and corporations both for and against candidates in federal elections. Supporters of such campaign-finance restrictions have argued that they are crucial for lessening the corrupting influence of money in our politics, while opponents hold that the restrictions constitute a violation of free speech.
For the 5-to-4 majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, “If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”
His argument rests on two problematic premises.
First is the idea that corporations are equivalent to people and should be treated as such by the law. While it’s true that corporations are associations made up of people, they are different from individual citizens in many ways. As Justice John Paul Stevens pointed out in his dissent, “[Corporations] cannot vote or run for office.”
Corporations are distinct legal entities that are treated differently by the law due to their purpose – namely, making money. It’s absurd that we should treat them as if they were individual citizens.
Second is the idea that spending money equals speech. To argue that corporate money is political speech is to argue that rich and powerful executives are entitled to more “freedom of speech” than everybody else. Of course, these companies should be free to publicly endorse or criticize politicians, but spending millions on campaign advertising and buying votes is an entirely different issue.
Even if you think corporations are people and money is speech, the danger of corruption posed by this decision is still deeply troubling.
Because any corporation can now spend unlimited amounts of cash on advertising, they can use their millions of dollars to essentially purchase votes for our representatives.
Oil companies, insurance companies and Wall Street banks have been given just what they need in their efforts to kill health reform, clean energy legislation and financial regulatory reform. It goes something like this: “Vote our way, and we’ll spend a million dollars on ads in your district supporting your re-election.”
In the wake of the decision, prominent Democratic and Republican lawmakers were tripping over one other to beg Wall Street executives for campaign donations. Each argued that the banks would be better off under their party’s rule.
Big companies and lobbyists already wield enormous influence over our government. Their money should not drown out the voices of the people.
Reach columnist Chris Jordan at opinion@dailyuw.com.
13 Comments
#1 Matthew Z.
on February 10, 2010 at 12:33 a.m.While I vehemently disagree with the Court's decision, the baseball analogy is a poor one. The court did indeed claim that it was applying the rules. They said that they were applying the first amendment.
#2 Holland Avery
on February 10, 2010 at 1:14 a.m.I think everyone is getting a little too worked up about this court ruling.
You make quite a few assumptions and leave out some details.
First, so everyone is clear, corporations cannot donate directly to a candidate. What the ruling does allow is for any corporation, union, or organization to produce an advertisement that presents the record of someone running for office.
Second, corporations, unions, and other organizations already donated huge sums of money to influence elections, they just did so through political action committees, or PACs. Now, instead of seeing an ad being produced by such and such PAC, it will be produced by such and such company. This ruling actually provides greater transparency in the election process.
The next thing I want to bring up, is you are operating under the assumption that more money = more votes. While more money can buy advertising, many studies have been done showing that there is little correlation between who spends more on an election and who wins.
You also assume that the public is stupid. That we will all be deceived by deceitful corporate ads. Guess what, they still have to produce ads that are mostly honest, and people get to decide for themselves what to think of them. Until corporations can give money to people to vote a certain way, they cannot buy an election.
FInally, you act like the supreme court is always right. Guess what, Brown v. The Board of Education overturned 60 years of supreme court precedent, and I doubt anyone argues with that decision. Or how about Dred Scott v. Sanford in 1857, which ruled African Americans were not citizens and were property.The 13th amendment overturned that precedent. Like Matt said, this ruling actually reverses laws that were unconstitutional to begin with.
#3 Ariel W.
on February 10, 2010 at 7:43 a.m.Did you know that corporations were legally people before women were? Talk about priorities!
#4 axiomata
on February 10, 2010 at 11:44 a.m.It is never a good idea to start an opinion piece with an analogy as seriously flawed as the one presented here. The court would serve no purpose if it was bound to uphold the rules and legislation enacted by congress.
The court's rulebook is the constitution. Past decisions can be useful, just like knowing how a previous umpire ruled on a particular play, but they are by no means requires to rule exactly the same so long as they make a coherant constitutionally based argument.
#5 Brian_Cox
on February 10, 2010 at 12:42 p.m.@ all the comments so far: Agreed. The Supreme Court's rulebook is the Constitution. Not the Legislative Branch.
If the Supreme Court had to agree with any rule passed by Congress, it wouldn't be an equal branch of government.
Strike one, Chris.
#6 Bob S.
on February 10, 2010 at 1:54 p.m.While true, the Supreme Court has had a history of deferring to Congress on issues that are not in clear violation of the Constitution. The idea being that in a representative democracy, its better to let the elected branch make policy. I'm just surprised that a group of 'strict constructionist' Supreme Court justices appear to be treating the Constitution as a living, breathing document.
#7 logical ninja
on February 10, 2010 at 3:23 p.m.I support the decision to let speech free. This is free speech people, FREE SPEECH
#8 Mara H.
on February 10, 2010 at 5:54 p.m.It seems pretty obvious that the purpose of the baseball analogy was to show that Justice Roberts is hypocritical. He promised that his court would be conservative and incrementalist in its approach. Instead, he overturned a century of court precedent in violation of his own ideology. This doesn't mean the columnist agrees with Roberts, but instead is trying to point out the hypocrisy in Roberts' comments. The Justice is not the "Strict Constructionist" that he claims to be.
#9 Brian_Cox
on February 11, 2010 at 7:18 a.m.I read most of the decision. Roberts makes a very strong argument that a group of people have the rights of people.
The fact that one group organizes themselves into a Political Action Committee and another chooses to organize themselves into a corporation shouldn't matter. They both are guaranteed freedom of speech. That's not evaluating the Constitution as a "living breathing document". That's throwing out the previous arbitrary decisions the Court had made.
#10 Lauren
on February 11, 2010 at 11:28 a.m.Thanks for writing this, Chris. You are a minority voice of reason on the Daily staff.
#11 John-Claude
on February 13, 2010 at 1:07 p.m.There is one huge difference between a corporation and any other organization. In their charter, most corporations are legally obliged to maximize profits for their shareholders. Surviving market forces further obliges corporations to maximize profits. If that means influencing elections in pursuit of rent profits, it becomes inevitable: corporations will spend money to get away with pollution; block consumer protection and anti-monopoly laws; and erect market entry barriers. If you ever took ECON 300, you might realize this.
#12 Brian_Cox
on February 13, 2010 at 1:43 p.m.Influencing elections is probably the most ineffective means of pursuing profit on could imagine.
Do you really think so poorly of the American public, that you believe a corporation talking about an issue is something the American voter's weak psyche cannot stand up to?
It's only speech. It's what you're doing right now. And it doesn't necessarily influence people the way you might think it does. But it does let people hear you. And all people have that right in this country.
#13 John-Claude
on February 13, 2010 at 2:24 p.m.Obviously, commercial advertising is effective, as is the "micro-targeting" marketing-data based campaign style pioneered by Karl Rove and David Axelrod. A corporation or chamber of commerce need only tap a portion of its treasury to flood our airwaves, newspapers, phone lines and mailboxes with their message. And they only need to influence a small percentage of voters to swing an election.
Look at history. From the British East India Company to Boeing, corporations have always pursed monopoly through political influence. That's what we call rent-seeking behavior. Ask any economist.
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