Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Tightening the Corporate Grip: The Stakes at the Supreme Court
Can things get still worse in Washington?
Yes, they can. And they will, if the Supreme Court decides for corporations and against real human beings and their democracy in a case the Court will be hearing today, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Until reaching the Supreme Court last year, this case has involved a narrow issue about whether an anti-Hillary Clinton movie made in the heat of the last presidential election is covered by restrictions in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. However, in a highly unusual move announced on the last day of the Supreme Court's 2008 term, the justices announced they wanted to reconsider two other pivotal decisions that limit the role of corporate money in politics.
The Court ordered a special oral argument on the issue, before the full start of their 2009 term in October.
The Court will today hear argument on whether prior decisions blocking corporations from spending their money on "independent expenditures" for electoral candidates should be overturned. "Independent expenditures" are funds spent without coordination with a candidate's campaign. The rationale for such a move would be that existing rules interfere with corporations' First Amendment rights to free speech.
Overturning the court's precedents on corporate election expenditures would be nothing short of a disaster. Corporations already dominate our political process -- through political action committees, fundraisers, high-paid lobbyists and personal contributions by corporate insiders, often bundled together to increase their impact, threats to move jobs abroad and more.
On the dominant issues of the day -- climate change, health care and financial regulation -- corporate interests are leveraging their political investments to sidetrack vital measures to protect the planet, expand health care coverage while controlling costs, and prevent future financial meltdowns.
The current system demands reform to limit corporate influence. Public funding of elections is the obvious and necessary (though very partial) first step.
Yet the Supreme Court may actually roll back the limits on corporate electoral spending now in place. These limits are very inadequate, but they do block unlimited spending from corporate treasuries to influence election outcomes. Rolling back those limits will unleash corporations to ramp up their spending still further, with a potentially decisive chilling effect on candidates critical of the Chamber of Commerce agenda.
The damage will be double, because a Court ruling on constitutional grounds would effectively overturn the laws in place in two dozen states similarly barring corporate expenditures on elections.
More than 100 years ago, reacting to what many now call the First Gilded Age, Congress acted to prohibit direct corporate donations to electoral candidates. Corporate expenditures in electoral races have been prohibited for more than 60 years.
These rules reflected the not-very-controversial observation that for-profit corporations have a unique ability to gather enormous funds and that expenditures from the corporate treasury are certain to undermine democracy - understood to mean rule by the people. Real human beings, not corporations.
In arguing to uphold the existing corporate expenditure restrictions, the Federal Election Commission has emphasized these common sense observations.
"For-profit corporations have attributes that no natural person shares," the FEC argues. Noting that corporations are state-created -- not natural entities -- the FEC explains that "for-profit corporations are inherently more likely than individuals to engage in electioneering behavior that poses a risk of actual or apparent corruption of office-holders." The FEC also notes that corporate spending on elections does not reflect the views of a company's owners (shareholders).
Although the signs aren't good, there is no certainty how the Court will decide Citizens United. There is some hope that the Court will decide that it is inappropriate to roll back such longstanding and important campaign finance rules, in a case where the issue was not presented in the lower courts, and where the litigants' dispute can be decided on much narrower grounds.
Public Citizen is organizing people to protest against a roll back of existing restrictions on corporate campaign expenditures. To join the effort, go to www.dontgetrolled.org
Ours is a government of the people, by the people, for the people -- not the corporations and their money. Corporations don't vote, and they shouldn't be permitted to spend limitless amounts of money to influence election outcomes.
Robert Weissman is president of Public Citizen
- Posted in
23 Comments so far
Show AllIf you're a male, you must ask yourself what is that terrific pain in my crotch? Why does it feel like the world arm wrestling champion has a tight hold of my money bags when I can see no one else is in the room?
Sioux Rose
MORDECHAI: I can feel your pain, balls not included.
matthew loughran
good one mordechai. i feel the same way about this now that it is coming to the supreme court. people are going to have to be up in arms about it. we are all getting our collective nuts squeezed by the corporate control of elections. why even bother having elections if this goes the wrong way by this supreme court?
the corporations can spend whatever they want and we continue our slide to a corporate controlled facsist police state.
keep organizing and protest against this bs.
From the article:
"Corporations don't vote..."
More to the point, corporations can't be put in prison when they commit fraud, and they don't face the death penalty when they commit murder. Corporations also don't pay taxes at the same effective rate as individuals.
I don't expect any of this to matter to our black-robed sophists. Far more likely, they'll rule that corporations are uber-persons, and are therefore entitled to a "one dollar/one vote" law to replace "one person/one vote."
"The rationale for such a move would be that existing rules interfere with corporations' First Amendment rights to free speech."
This, of course, refers to the First Amendment to the document that begins:
We the Corporations of the United States of America...
Certainly, not the one that begins:
We the People...
Corporate personhood is utter insanity...
We need a constitutional amendment that abolishes corporate "personhood." Fat chance of that happening, though, since Congress is bought and paid for by ... the corporations.
"Ours is a government of the people, by the people, for the people -- not the corporations and their money."
In theory anyway. It's actually a government of scum sucking bottom feeding lawyers at the corporate conservative trough.
Now it makes sense...we're turning the planet into scum to feed those you so aptly describe...they need to dine alfresco on the beaches of Valdez...
"The current system demands reform to limit corporate influence. Public funding of elections is the obvious and necessary (though very partial) first step."
Getting rid of electronic voting machines is the first step...or, perhaps, getting rid of the two-party system...or, removing corporate personhood...or, an amendment that would allow sufficient public outcry to result in the dismissal of congresspeople...
discussing election funding is little more than another distraction as long as the offices, candidates and outcomes are controlled...discussing lobbying monies spent on sitting congresspeople would be more to the point, but...
one could argue the result of the election funding, tv advertising, is completely irrelevant, were it not for the fact that it maintains the illusion of contest...
SCOTUS conservatives know the only way their right wing can win elections is by turning the corporate beast loose. Unless sh*t filled Scalia blows up and the rest of the SCOTUS cons get caught in sex scandals, expect the worst.
Jethro & dubet -
A corporation has no conscience, and is incapable of engaging in the free exercise of religion.
Corporations cannot peaceably (or unpeaceably) assemble in the streets, nor draft up, sign and submit petitions to the government for redress grievances.
A corporation has no person, nor any house, to be kept secure from warrantless searches or seizures by government agents.
Corporations cannot be deprived of life or liberty, with or without the due process of law.
A corporation cannot be victimized by excessive bail, nor suffer from cruel or unusual punishment.
So much for fidelity to original intent, and to strict construction of the text of the US Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
And as for equal protection of the laws, "It's every man for himself!" the elephant shouted gleefully, dancing among the chickens.
Bill from Saginaw
And a person can't live forever.
ezeflyer September 9th, 2009 4:01 pm
"And a person can't live forever."
No, a human person cannot live forever- but a corporation can!
Unfortunately, in 1886, an intellectually deficient or corrupt Supreme Court made a historic decision: It held that under the Constitution, a private corporation was a "natural person", entitled to all the rights and privileges of a human being without having to abide by the laws that human beings must live with and are destroyed by the judicial system for breaking laws.
The prevailing bullsh!t established to defend corporations is: "No Mind, No Crime". If it has no mind and therefore cannot commit a crime, then how in hell were corporations given the legal status of a thinking human being yet don't have to worry about committing crimes as do natural born persons of this country?
WTF kind of reasoning is that?
Google: "Santa Clara Country v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co." to see how the Supreme Court Railroaded "The People" of this country!
Actually, the Court decided against Southern Pacific, but a court reporter, one J.C. Bancroft Davis, recorded a summary of the case for publication of the leagal document. He wrote, erroneously, that the court had decided FOR corporate personhood. For reasons known only to God (and whoever got payoffs for the 'error') neither SCOTUS, nor Congress, nor the publisher of the court records FIXED the problem. Indeed, the SCOTUS has consistently FAILED to rule against the "opinion" of a court reporter, not even their own opinion. Talk about cowardice and corruption. Of course, the Roberts Court (5 bought-and-paid-for corporate whores) will continue to uphold this miscarriage of justice.
Bill from Saginaw writes:
And as for equal protection of the laws, "It's every man for himself!" the elephant shouted gleefully, dancing among the chickens.
delightful image! if only it weren't so true...
If the right wing troglodytes on the US Supreme Court have their way; the Great Lurch Backwards to re-do of the Robber Baron "Gilded Age' that began in earnest under Grandpa Caligula (Reagan) will be nearly complete as the United States joins the ranks of the Third world.
How will foreign companies be dealt with? If they have branches in the US will they be able to exercise their "Free Speech rights" here? Will the China National Petroleum Corporation or the Central Bank of the Russian Federation be influencing our elections?
If so it could be interesting to see how their corporate propaganda plays in Peoria...
The fix is in, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090909/ap_on_go_su_co/us_supreme_court_clinton_movie
The Class War is now erupting. This decision I look at as the 21st century's version of Dred Scott.
Any roll back of existing restrictions on corporate campaign expenditures by the U.S. Supreme Court, .....a vote "against real human beings and their democracy", .....should be the final straw that breaks the camel's back after all our nation has recently been through.........and an AMERICAN REVOLUTION BEGINS.
Every Common Dreams reader needs to refresh their memory of an article written by Sara Robinson, "When Change Is Not Enough: The Seven Steps to Revolution", February 22, 2008.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/22/7241
"Corporations" under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, included not only big businesses as everybody here is refering to, but ALSO to non-profit corporations and public service orgainzations. The Federal Election Commission's lawyer also argued that in the name of 'campaign finance reform', Congress could even outlaw the publication of books funded by "corporations".
This is not really about the power of Corporations as Public Citizen is trying to present it, but about 'free speech' itself. The arguments are about the 2002 Reform Act, not some 100 year old rulings. To say that corporations have been prohibited for 60 years from making donations to campaigns.... how well has THAT worked out?
We DO need to curtail corporate powers, corporate personhood, and falsehoods in campaigns, but THIS is not the case to do it. Joan Clayborne bought into this fight before leaving Public Citizen, for what I suspect were 'personal' reasons. Public Citizen has done many fine things and fought many a just battle, I just don't see this as one of them. (just my opinion)
Dark days.
To prevent this kind of thing from even coming before the Supreme Court, we need an amendment to eliminate corporate personhood.
Of course, the existing Congress and Senators would never pass such a thing.
We first need local referendums to eliminate private funding of elections and assure equal time among all qualifying candidates.
Then we can work from the local towards the broader elections.
Dark days.
To prevent this kind of thing from even coming before the Supreme Court, we need an amendment to eliminate corporate personhood.
Of course, the existing Congress and Senators would never pass such a thing.
We first need local referendums to eliminate private funding of elections and assure equal time among all qualifying candidates.
Then we can work from the local towards the broader elections.