If this is indeed the frame the court applies, it may be headed in exactly the wrong direction; there’s reason to believe that “ingratiation and access” are if anything more, not less, corrosive than quid-pro-quo corruption. Some reformers have suggested tackling that problem by adding resources to the system, rather than attempting to prohibit them, and Gerken takes a similar approach in her search for a silver lining:
Perhaps Citizens United — which may impose limits on Congress’s power to regulate that extend well beyond corporate spending — will push reform in a new direction. Rather than trying to limit the power of money in politics, we should harness money’s power to fix politics.
For example, matching rules for small donors (which convert a $20 donation into, say, $100 or $200) give politicians a reason to reach out to working-class and middle-class voters. While campaign finance has always tried to level down — restricting the ability of the monied to influence politics — the better strategy going forward may be to level up by giving everyday voters a bigger say.
Whatever happens, and however broad the ruling’s effect is, it seems likely that the amount of money in politics will continue to rise. That means a continuing role for journalists in tracking spending, monitoring influence, and making the business of politics transparent to the public.
If you were a corporation called The New York Times or Time Warner AOL, you were not subject to the censorship challenged successfully by the makers of this movie critical of Hillary Clinton. Accounts of the Court ruling, including Greg Marx's, also have not actually spelled out the particulars of the case at hand, i.e., whether publicly vending this film in 2008 was against the law - which makes the ruling seem a lot more intelligent and clear cut than does a lot of euphemism about "corporate money".
But if you were a widget-making corporation, you did not have the same free speech rights. Therefore the NY Times and TIME can work furiously for the election of Barack Obama (as they did) without questions from liberals about whether a corporation has speech rights. Remember the old A.J. Leibling line about a free press belonging to anyone who owned one? Usually intoned by the Left, it here backfires on them. MSM posing about "money in politics" is hypocrisy on stilts; the issue isn't money, it's access to information resources for both consumers and producers.
#1 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Fri 22 Jan 2010 at 04:25 PM
"If you were a corporation called The New York Times or Time Warner AOL, you were not subject to the censorship challenged successfully by the makers of this movie critical of Hillary Clinton."
Nor would you have been if you were called Fox News, The Wall Street Journal or any number of politically conservative news organizations.
The problem at least to me, is that at least with The NY Times, Fox, MSNBC and WSJ, you KNOW their bias and can ponder their writing accordingly. Unless this new ruling forces corporation to run ads or give donations under their own names, we will have no idea if "Citizens for a Better World" IS a a bunch of concerned citizens or if it's really Monsanto in disguise.
What if the major shareholders of a corp or at odds with the employees politically? How is that going to play out?
And, when did corporations become on par with human beings wrt civil rights? Really? Weird.
#2 Posted by TotallyDaft, CJR on Fri 22 Jan 2010 at 07:11 PM
I ratify TotallyDaft's final comment: though corporations need legal status and legal trade protection and legal communication rights or investors and lenders will not invest or lend, it is perverse to equate them with human beings with civil rights. Congress and state legislatures can and may nullify Citizens United; corporate activity may (can) be constitutionally limited by their creating agency: engaging in political activity may be prohibited as being beyond corporate power or "ultra vires."
Bernard Kaye
#3 Posted by Bernard Kaye, CJR on Sun 24 Jan 2010 at 12:32 PM
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances
Why is this rocket science? No one would argue that the activities of a for profit private enterprise like the NY Times or CBS aren’t covered by the first amendment so why should we argue that other for profit organizations cant advocate for their own self interests?
#4 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Mon 25 Jan 2010 at 09:38 AM
To my friends above, you haven't really engaged the point about The New York Times, etc., at all. Of course 'corporations' are entitled to free speech rights - that's why they are already given to media corporations. That's also the basis of academic free speech rights - universities are organized as corporations, and challenges to academic freedom of speech are addressed to and defended by the university as a corporation. NPR is under the authority of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, I believe. You can't write a coherent law that gives free speech rights to the latter, while restricting them on the part of others.
The lesson of the Supreme Court's ruling is that past efforts to restrict speech via campaign contributions, etc., have failed, and that the failure is inevitable. (Chinese-style censorship has no 'rules'; the government decides on an arbitrary basis. Censorship can only really be successful without written laws.) We have the Internet as a rising source of information, so now the 'corporate censorship board' would have to sniff around the Internet for signs of 'corporate' endorsements. Corporations are groups of individuals who group together voluntarily to have a stronger collective voice than they would as individuals. That's the point of labor unions, activist groups, non-profits, and - yes - corporations.
There's a strain of leftist thinking that wishes to reduce or eliminate the power of mediating institutions, in favor of a model of the powerful state on one hand, and the petitioning individual on the other. That usually leads to less liberty, not more. This idea has been struck a very healthy blow.
#5 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 25 Jan 2010 at 12:58 PM
Actually Mike...
The Consitutiion was quite specific when it granted freedoms of the press. Other groups that have been granted explicit rights include: individual human beings, churches, states and commonwealths, and branches of government. The founders did not, and for good reason, include corporate rights. As a matter of fact, a good number of them envisioned the corporation one day becoming more powerful than democratic government as Jefferson notes below:
"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
This is also the reason they placed the Treasury under the executive and the power to coin money in Congress--so that large concentrations of wealth could not manifest to adversely impact or influence the democratic machinations.
Like you said, though Its not rocket science, but at this point it no longer matters. As is rightfully pointed out in the article, there is plenty of wiggle room for quid pro quo relationship in this ruling. This ruling doesn't start the corruption. It merely codifies it as part of our law once again.
My question is this: This ruling reaffirms that money equals speech and cannot be limited based on "identity" of the speaker. And, if the corporation is a creation of law (ie the state), does that mean that the individual cannot be limited in speech for lack of money? And that being a creation of the state, the corporation cannot bar the individual from access to channels of political communication? It becomes especially murky if the corporation can ever be shown to have acted as an agent of the state. For example, when Fox willingliy participates in the Pentagon's information operation, in effect they become an agent of the government and, from what I can tell based on this ruling, cannot limit speech based on identity of the speaker.
#6 Posted by Rick, CJR on Mon 25 Jan 2010 at 01:05 PM
Thanks to all the commenters. I just wanted to note that the point Mark Richard and Mike H make -- that for this purpose distinctions shouldn't, or shouldn't necessarily, be drawn between media corporations and other corporations -- has been made by the scholar and blogger Eugene Volokh numerous times since the ruling came down. See for example here: "http://volokh.com/2010/01/21/citizens-united-and-the-mainstream-media/". To my eye this is more relevant to a debate on the merits of the decision than it's likely consequences, but it's an interesting argument.
#7 Posted by Greg Marx, CJR on Mon 25 Jan 2010 at 04:23 PM
Rick makes a nuanced argument, but Jefferson didn't write the Constitution, and his sentiments - which were also strongly anti-centralized-government to a degree that would get him classified as a right-wing loony, etc., by our eloquent progressives above - were not reflected in the wording.
Again, the issue of the special exemption for corporations in the news business is dodged by the supporters of attempts to suppress free speech rights for other organizations. The restrictions struck down by the Supreme Court apply also to advocacy groups left and right. Let speech be open and robust. What are people who lean Left afraid of? You still have the mainstream media, Hollywood, almost all of academia . . . none of these are eager to devote resources to embarrassing individuals or groups on the left.
#8 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Sat 30 Jan 2010 at 08:30 AM
Mark wrote: "What are people who lean Left afraid of?"
padikiller responds: Money.
They know that very few people will actually pay money to broadcast liberal nonsense (witness Air America's prolonged demise). Liberals want to quiet the common sense views of the right (along with the kooky extreme views of the right, in fairness) in order to facilitate the stealing of money.
What positions can liberals sell? " We need to spend our way out of bankruptcy"? "We need a discretionary spending freeze and also another few trillion dollars in federal borrowing"? "We are at war against terrorists, but we need to Mirandize then when them when they try to blow up a plane"? "We're going to have an honest open debate over health care by locking our opponents out of secret negotiations"?
Liberals aren't stupid enough to believe that anyone is actually going to shell out money to spread this kind of stupidity around, so the first thing they do when they get power is attempt to abuse it by hushing conservatives.
#9 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 30 Jan 2010 at 09:29 AM
Jefferson's anti-corporate views were both valid and practical - as long as the electoral franchise was limited to educated, male slave-owning plantation owners in a pre-industrial, insular agrarian society. Nowadays, his position is more than a bit untenable.
He didn't write the Constitution, but he did articulate many of the natural rights that were incorporated in the Bill of Rights.
And this is where the liberals part ways with the Founders. The "rights" espoused by liberals have no relation to the fundamental rights the Founders delineated.
When the Founders spoke of rights, the spoke of personal rights. The right to DO something without being hindered by government. Speak. Pray. Bear arms. Be secure in a home.
When liberals euphemisitcally speak of "rights" they mean the "right" of a "deserving class" to TAKE something from "somebody else", in the form of labor or property. The "right to an education" means that the government should force somebody else to teach a "deserving" person. The "right" to health care means that the government should force doctors, nurses, and taxpayers to part with labor and money for the sake of others. The "right" to a "living wage" or a "minimum wage" means that the government should force employers to pay more than they would otherwise have to pay.
This socialist redefinition of the "rights" of the American people needs to be reversed, if it's not already too late.
#10 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 30 Jan 2010 at 10:16 AM