The Case For Citizens United

When the SCOTUS decided Citizens United it caused an uproar among many Leftists.  The case has been framed by pundits as big corporate money versus democracy.  Contrary to this simple narrative, the court had  to decide and balance tricky issues concerning the First Amendment.  If nothing else, those who are against Citizens United should understand the real issues the court faced.

The ACLU, the usual darling of the Left, supports the Citizen United ruling.  They are against "[a]ny rule that requires the government to determine what political speech is legitimate." And "how much political speech is appropriate is difficult to reconcile with the First Amendment. Our system of free expression is built on the premise that the people get to decide what speech they want to hear; it is not the role of the government to make that decision for them." The ACLU goes on to point out that "It is also useful to remember that the mixture of money and politics long predates Citizens United and would not disappear even if Citizens United were overruled."

Michael Kinsley, another Left darling, asks in the LA Times "[i[f 'money isn't speech,' may the government put a limit on how much a corporation can spend publishing a newspaper? The law Citizens United overturned actually exempted media companies from its spending limits. But the difficulty — impossibility, really — of defining a media company and explaining why it should have more rights than any other company suggests that a right granted to one company should be granted to all."

The fear being that a company like GE, who owned NBC,  could make a movie against a politician who favored Samsung.  But Samsung, not owning a media company, could not reply in kind.  This would also further limit political influence to large companies that could "cover" themselves with an affiliated media corporation.  But the restrictions would still apply to most companies, bloggers and sites like Reddit. 

Background

Campaign finance reform is, surprise, all about power.  "Considered in detail, each step in the effort to limit campaign spending turns out to advantage the party that sought it. If its own numbers are insufficient to pass the legislation (as was the case with McCain-­Feingold in 2002), then it seeks to broaden its base by adding incumbent-­protection sweeteners to attract enough members of the opposing party to create a bipartisan majority. John Samples notes that McCain-­Feingold drew most of its support from Democrats — who, he argues, saw long-term electoral disaster in the growing Republican fundraising edge, which was increasing after Republicans won the presidency in 2000. But to gain a legislative majority, the minority Democrats had to gain Republican votes; Samples finds that the Republicans who supported McCain-Feingold were, by and large, those most in danger of losing their seats. For them, the incumbent-benefit protections of the law made it irresistible.

John Samples "makes the Madisonian observation that "politicians use political power to further their own goals rather than the public ­interest....Campaign finance laws might be, in other words, a form of ­corruption." Noting that "scholars date the largest decline in congressional electoral competition from 1970" and that the Federal Election ­Campaign Act — the foundation of modern campaign-finance law — was passed in 1972, Samples points out that "the decline in ­electoral competition and the new era of campaign finance regulation are virtually conterminous."

Citizens United

When Citizens United went before the SCOTUS, the government lost in oral arguments over censorship.  This exchange was reported in the New York Times:  

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked, for instance, whether a campaign biography in book form could be banned. Mr. Stewart [Deputy Solicitor General - the government's lawyer] said yes, so long as it was paid for with a corporation’s general treasury money, as opposed to its political action committee.

“That’s pretty incredible,” Justice Alito said.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked whether it would make a difference if a 500-page book had a single sentence in it that said “vote for X.” Then he asked about “a sign held up in Lafayette Park saying vote for so and so.”

If corporate money were used to pay for the book or the sign, Mr. Stewart said, Congress would have the power to ban them before elections."

So next time you see Citizens United framed as corporate greed against democracy remember there is another thorny issue here: free speech.