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Feingold Fears 'Lawless' Court Ruling on Corporate Campaigning
More than one hundred years ago, after a 1904 president race that saw big life insurance companies pour money into the project of electing Republican Teddy Roosevelt, the defeated Democratic candidate, Judge Alton Parker, raised the question of whether presidents and congresses would simply be bought by corporations seeking policies that favored their interests.
"The greatest moral question which now confronts us is: Shall the trusts and corporations be prevented from contributing money to control or aid in controlling elections?" declared Parker.
Roosevelt recognized that when he relied on corporate money to overwhelm an opponent, he stood on the wrong side of democracy and put the American experiment at risk. That recognition made the 26th president a reformer. He called for full public financing of federal campaigns and told the Congress in 1905 that: "All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law."
Roosevelt did not get full public financing, and real reformers are still struggling to achieve this most necessary of all electoral reforms.
But Congress did in 1907 pass the Tillman Act, which banned corporate giving.
Successive congresses have over the years strengthened that ban -- with the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925, the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971, broad amendments to FECA in 1972 and 1974 and the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002.
State governments have gone even further in barring efforts by corporations to influence elections.
The U.S. Supreme Court has accepted and rejected aspects of campaign finance laws over the years. But it has consistently respected the right of federal and state governments to constrain corporate electioneering -- recognizing as both Democrat Parker and Republican Roosevelt came to that it was in the public interest to prevent trusts and corporations from controlling elections.
But the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, is a conservative judicial activist who has made little effort to disguise his determination to rearrange political rules to favor his political and ideological allies. And Roberts has worked hard to build a court majority in favor of dramatically reducing, and perhaps eliminating, constraints on corporate dominance of the electoral and governing processes.
The measure of Roberts' success could come in short order, as the court is expected to release its ruling in Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission -- a case the chief justice has managed and manipulated with the purpose of raising the issue of whether the people and their elected representatives have a right to enact regulations that assure (or at least hold out the promise of) free and fair elections.
Activists fear that the court's five-justice conservative majority, "change electoral politics as we know it in America today by perverting the Constitution to bar the people and their elected representatives from limiting corporate political spending." And they have been organizing to challenge the ruling in Congress and with proposals to amend the U.S. Constitution in a manner that would protect the democratic discourse from being overwhelmed by corporate spending.
The court may not go as far as democracy campaigners fear.
But U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who has been in the forefront of campaign-finance reform efforts for the better part of two decades, is worried.
"This would be in my view, a lawless decision from the Supreme Court," says the senator who gave his name to the McCain-Feingold law. "Part of me says I can't believe they'll do it, but there's some indication they might, and that means the whole idea of respecting the previous decisions of the Supreme Court won't mean anything anymore."
A lawyer who chairs the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Feingold notes with regard to controls on corporate campaigning: "These things were argued in 1907, when they passed the ban on corporate treasuries. It was argued in 1947, Taft-Hartley did this. The Supreme Court has affirmed over and over again that it's not part of free speech that corporations and unions can use their treasuries (to buy elections)."
If the court does overturn both law and precedent to advance a corporate agenda, Feingold says, "It's just an example of activism, and legislating by a court, if they do this."
It is, as well, dangerous for democracy.
Says Feingold: "If they overturn a hundred years of laws, it means that corporations or unions can just open their treasuries (and) just completely buy up all the television time, and drown out everyone else's voices."
- Posted in
21 Comments so far
Show AllSays Feingold: "If they overturn a hundred years of laws, it means that corporations or unions can just open their treasuries (and) just completely buy up all the television time, and drown out everyone else's voices."
Why bother buying television time? That is SO 1990's
Just buy the network (FOX), staff it with fellow travellers and have a 24/7 partisan informercial and call it "news"
We commented yesterday on a story with very similar content (Feingold's concern that the Court might over-turn Feingold/McCain in the Citizens United case)---and I believe the article is still being highlighted on the left margin "news" of the CD main page.
Today's post reminded me of the point that I have made over and over about the critical nature of the Sotomayor nomination on precisely the issue of "corporate personhood" highlighted in Feingold's statement of concern. Feingold himself was aware of the importance of this issue and of the obligation of a U.S. Senator to explore the issue before voting for her (which he ultimately did, along I think with all other Democrats in a 68-31 confirmation vote.) Thanks to YouTube, we have preserved Feingold's 3 minutes of "discussion" with Sotomayor on the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTuuzYeW_kE
In the 3 minutes of that exchange, Feingold spends two minutes for his question, citing the Citizens case specifically and giving a cogent argument in support of maintaining Feingold/McCain's limitations on corporate campaign contributions, noting how a 5-4 Court in favor of civil liberties changed to a 5-4 corporation-friendly Court after two new Bush appointees, and wondering quite appropriately whether her appointment, to replace one of the liberals (Souter) would hopefully preserve even that minority of 4 liberals on the next Court. Sotomayor, prefacing her response with the assertion that she had answered "every question" directed to her by the Judiciary Committee, spent the rest of the time in her 1 minute of response to give a non-answer to this one, because of the "special circumstance" that this would likely to be her first case as a Justice so---you know the drill, blah, blah, I can't comment on a pending case, not even on the "broad legal principle" which Feingold asked her to address. So much, really, for democracy in action in the constitutional provision that the Senate give due deliberation before confirming a Justice-for-Life. When a nominee won't comment on as fundamental an issue as corporate personhood, what say do the people have in the selection of their courts?
First of all lets get one thing straight, there are no liberals/progressives on the United States Supreme Court! There are four centerists and five very pro corporate, pro religious justices.
As far as the court over turning one hundred years of law is concerened, it will then be necessary for Senator Feingold to get with Congressman Dennis Kucinich to start impeachment proceedings against at least Cheif Justice Roberts.
If impeachment proceedings were begun, the American people would then see which of our elected officials are on the side of the corporations and which ones are on the side of We The People.
Of course I have no doubt that President Obama, Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi would find a way to stop Senator Feingold and Congressman Kucinich.
Z1: While the impeachment proceedings you suggest are delicious to contemplate, I doubt you'd ever get even Feingold or Kucinich to support impeachment on those grounds. Courts have always "overturned" laws of some duration, and in fact the Constitution as it gets interpreted is not an immutable body of law for all time but is highly "mutable." Whether it should be changed is another issue (I obviously oppose the overturning of Feingold/McCain) but impeachment is not the tool for getting where we'd both like to get.
Corporations AND individuals should BOTH be banned from giving money to politicians. ANY money given is nothing more than a bribe.
What we need is a system of public financing that removes ALL private money from elections. All serious candidates for any given office should be given a fund that is ALL they are allowed to spend. All broadcast systems would be required to air a certain amount of ads for all candidates as a part of their license qualifications. No private money allowed, regardless of whether it's the candidate's money, family money, corporate or individual contributions. If you spend it all too soon, then that tells us that you aren't a qualified candidate. If you don't spend wisely enough or don't get your message out successfully, then that tells us about how you would govern as well. It's the ideas that SHOULD matter, not whether you have more money to drown out the other guy.
Regardless of what the SCOTUS says, money and speech are NOT the same thing. Money buys things and people, speech does not. Try paying your mortgage with a good speech. Only politicians can do that.
As long as we keep this system of legalized bribery, we will only get as corrupt a congress as we have now, and a president who bows to those with the most money.
My first thought is 'Just don't watch tv! or donate to campaigns', but you're right, it would still be wrong to have so much corporate funding channeled to candidates and current politicians. I suppose the chances of public campaign financing are about as good as the chances for universal single-payer medical care, a drastic reduction in military spending, investment in green technology, etc.
I lost respect for the SCOTUS long since.
Oh, I agree that the chances are slim and none, and Slim is on the last bus out of town. But until that happens, NONE of our elections will be fair, even, or honest. And nothing will change, because it's in the economic interests of those who already have too much. And that is why it is imperative that we do everything we can to make sure that it DOES happen.
Money makes stupid, even suicidal decisions. Wouldn't it be nice to have a gov't that is full of people who don't have to prove themselves to be the biggest whores on the planet just to get the job? And then to prove that every day just to stay in the job?
The Swiss have it right. Gov't jobs are mandatory for those CALLED to do them. And they are not permanent. They are seen as a real pain in the butt that no one wants to do. In fact, they look at it as being anyone who WANTS the job is an automatic suspect. Seems sensible to me...
Well said, and worth the attention of every governmental official.
100% agree. That's the #1 thing we need to get the ship moving in the right direction. "Imagine there's no money..."
I find it difficult to believe that our system could become any more corrupt than it already is!!!!!!!
It is a curious fact that 6 of the 9 Justices are Roman Catholic.
That's to counter the six Jewish members who represent The Federal Reserve. It shows balance. You see, only the common people are expected to have to exercise tolerance and diversity.
I hope the other 3 are Southern Baptists.
The previously-referenced CD story published yesterday contained this Feingold quote:
"Our elections would become like NASCAR races - underwritten by companies," Feingold said. "Only in this case, the corporate underwriters wouldn't just be seeking publicity, they would be seeking laws and policies that the candidates have the power to provide."
_______________________________________
Commenter Goebbels sez and I were similarly struck by the incongruity of this statement.
Recently, I've written that I WANT to like and root for the handful of Elected Misrepresentatives like Feingold, Sanders, Kucinich, etc. Compared to their typically thuggish, narcissistic, bloated hive-mind kleptocrat colleagues, they seem actually decent and perceptive.
Feingold, unlike many of his colleagues, does not appear to be so stupid, benighted, complacent, or naïve that he really doesn't see that the "worst-case scenario" he describes is actually the status quo.
So Feingold is either consciously employing deceit and hypocrisy, or is truly in denial. Or both.
I do expect the Supreme Court to continue in its present 21st-Century role of stripping the ordinary citizen of the vestiges of its political power and transferring it to abstract capital-- wealth, money. Money is speech, money is freedom, money is liberty. Money is power, the fuel of the ruling, dominant hive-mind.
Still, the SCOTUS will merely be downsizing a cumbersome fig leaf to a G-string to streamline the assimilation process.
It's both depressing and irritating that Feingold is either truly deluded, or that he feels he needs to pretend that the "corporate underwriters" aren't already running the show.
And after the Supreme Court buries this new spear into the heart of traditional US republican democracy, and advances Amerika's mutation into fully commodified, kleptocratic authoritarian government, Feingold will doubtless turn up on "Democracy Now" to express his disappointment and concern.
Then he'll repeat his Stupid Elected Misrepresentative trick using cognitive dissonance, live on stage before the cameras, and cough up a bogus silver lining. I wouldn't be surprised if he claims that the Democratic Party-- led, of course, by our principled Constitutional scholar of a Unitary Executive-- will launch a fierce and uncompromising campaign to undo this grievous blow.
It's exactly the kind of battle that demands an Obama second term, of course.
Unlike his lesser colleagues, unimaginative blowhards that they are, Feingold may have just enough self-awareness and fundamental decency left to avoid "vowing" or "resolving" to fix this problem. One must give credit to such fleeting displays of class.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Says Feingold: "If they overturn a hundred years of laws, it means that corporations or unions can just open their treasuries (and) just completely buy up all the television time, and drown out everyone else's voices."
Everone else has already been drowned out by corporate media: Kucinich, Nader, McKinney, and dozens of others never got the coverage a democratic people should expect and demand.
Legalized graft. Who will introduce a bill to amend the Constitution and give SCOTUS term limits, retroactive?
I believe this to be one of the single biggest decisions to effect our country going on to date. If the Supreme Court passes this I can't even begin to image the rage of American's when they do find out.
Besides the public rage towards the Supreme Court, and I do mean pointing fingers at those who approve of what will certainly prove to be an extremely unpopular decision. Not only will it be necessary to overturn the courts decision, something needs to be done to deal with those who don’t seem to be able to view or accept that there is a majority that does have an opinion in this country. We're getting fed up with being ignored, hi jacked, bamboozled, and taken advantage of.
I'll be particularly interested in hearing the arguments of Justice Roberts. I think he’ll get what he has coming to him once other's, beside myself, hear what he has to say. And I'll bet he'll be yapping off a zillions citing and laws that he'll stand firmly by that support his ridiculous decision. I'm betting what he'll have to say won't fly. I’m sure Roberts will become one of the most recognizable faces in the streets of the USA, even the main image of him used would be rendering of a hand drawn scribbled watercolor. I suppose he'll be about as popular as Charles Manson and Bernie Madoff. I sure hope Justice Roberts prefers to vacation outside the country.
All expression of rage will be limited to the free speech zones and not carried by any USA networks.
Most Americans will be unaware of the issue.
Unlimited free speech for corporations, if granted by SCOTUS will be the final nail in the coffin of US democracy and the final plank of the corporatist fascist state.
Even if Russ would run for President, media corporations won't let him be considered.
smiling puppets,
faux opposition,
a ruse
"More than one hundred years ago, after a 1904 president race that saw big life insurance companies pour money into the project of electing Republican Teddy Roosevelt, the defeated Democratic candidate, Judge Alton Parker, raised the question of whether presidents and congresses would simply be bought by corporations seeking policies that favored their interests."
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And 106 years later, the answer is a resounding YES, YES, YES, oooooooh, YES!