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Shed a Tear for Our Democracy
Yesterday, in the case Citizens United v. FEC, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence election outcomes.
Money from Exxon, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer and the rest of the Fortune 500 is already corroding the policy making process in Washington, state capitals and city halls. Now, the Supreme Court tells these corporate giants that they have a constitutional right to trample our democracy.
In eviscerating longstanding rules prohibiting corporations from using their own monies to influence elections, the court invites giant corporations to open up their treasuries to buy election outcomes. Corporations are sure to accept the invitation.
The predictable result will be corporate money flooding the election process; huge targeted campaigns by corporations and their front groups attacking principled candidates who challenge parochial corporate interests; and a chilling effect on candidates and election officials, who will be deterred from advocating and implementing policies that advance the public interest but injure deep-pocket corporations.
Because the decision is made on First Amendment constitutional grounds, the impact will be felt not only at the federal level, but in the states and localities, including in state judicial elections.
In one sense, the decision was a long time in coming. Over the past 30 years, the Supreme Court has created and steadily expanded the First Amendment protections that it has afforded for-profit corporations.
But in another sense, the decision is a startling break from Supreme Court tradition. Even as it has mistakenly equated money with speech in the political context, the court has long upheld regulations on corporate spending in the electoral context. The Citizens United decision is also an astonishing overreach by the court. No one thought the issue of corporations' purported right to spend money to influence election outcomes was at stake in this case until the Supreme Court so decreed. The case had been argued in lower courts, and was originally argued before the Supreme Court, on narrow grounds related to application of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.
The court has invented the idea that corporations have First Amendment rights to influence election outcomes out of whole cloth. There is surely no originalist interpretation to support this outcome, since the court created the rights only in recent decades. Nor can the outcome be justified in light of the underlying purpose and spirit of the First Amendment. Corporations are state-created entities, not real people. They do not have expressive interests like humans; and, unlike humans, they are uniquely motivated by a singular focus on their economic bottom line. Corporate spending on elections defeats rather than advances the democratic thrust of the First Amendment.
We, the People cannot allow this decision to go unchallenged. We, the People cannot allow corporations to take control of our democracy.
There are some things that can be done to mitigate the damage from today's decision.
First, we must have public financing of elections. Public financing will give independent candidates a base from which they may be able to compete against candidates benefiting from corporate expenditures. We will intensify our efforts to win rapid passage of the Fair Elections Now Act, which would provide congressional candidates with an alternative to corporate-funded campaigns before fundraising for the 2010 election is in full swing. Sponsored by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, and Rep. John Larson, D-Connecticut, the bill would encourage unlimited small-dollar donations from individuals and provide candidates with public funding in exchange for refusing corporate contributions or private contributions in amounts of more than $100. The proposal has broad support, including more than 126 co-sponsors in the House.
In the wake of the court's decision, it is also essential that the presidential public financing system be made viable again. Cities and states will also need to enact public financing of elections.
Congress must ensure that corporate CEOs do not use corporate funds for political purposes, against the wishes of shareholders, with legislation requiring an absolute majority of shares to be voted in favor, before any corporate political expenditure is permitted. There are other legislative approaches to limit today's damage, including a range of measures proposed by Representative Alan Grayson, D-Florida.
These mitigating measures will not be enough to offset today's decision, however. The decision itself must be overturned.
We need a constitutional amendment specifying that for-profit corporations are not entitled to First Amendment protections, except for freedom of the press. A constitutional amendment is not a thing to throw around lightly. But today's decision so imperils our democratic well-being, and so severely distorts the rightful purpose of the First Amendment, that a constitutional corrective is demanded.
Winning a constitutional amendment will be a long-term effort. The starting point is for the people to petition their government to demand action. Public Citizen with allies has launched such a petition effort. Got to www.dontgetrolled.org to sign the petition.
The Supreme Court has lost its way. Democracy is rule of the people -- real, live humans, not artificial entity corporations. Now it's time for the people to reassert their rights.
123 Comments so far
Show All"Lost its way"! It also elected George W. Bush!!!
It is all quite intentional. There is no supreme court. And. The suggestions that are made in this article are laughable. As if an economically depressed electorate can compete. Can this man truly be so naive?
Yes. He admits, in the end, that his suggestions are not sufficient. So why did he even go there?
Next we will have the killer robots having freedom of speech under the constitution!
thank you...as if the process worked until this decision...
this decision is another in a long line of obvious symptoms, not a cause...
Some background:
Corporation man:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/robe-j21.shtml
wawa : I am as entirely opposed to imperialism and bourgeois reformism as you. But the big news of the twentieth century was the abject failure of socialism--not just the reformist socialism (Social Democracy) of the Second International but the communism of the Third International. Didn't you hear the news? Once you catch up on the death of the Left, you might want to consider our plight in terms of the disjunction posed by the classic socialists: "Ruin or Revolution" (Marx), or, alternatively, "Socialism or Barbarism" (Engels).
I thought the big news of the 20th Century was the abject failure of heavier-than-air flight. The opinionmakers and other elites were sure those contraptions would always fail in their attempts, especially those elites who could see a way to benefit from the failure. Thank goodness they convinced everyone else to stop trying.
kivals, a true believer! And like that tribe, you present no evidence for your creed; instead, you give us a mangled metaphor of liftoff. Perhaps you'd like to adapt this classic from the American South: "Save your confederate money, boys, the South will rise again!" Or maybe something a bit more modern: Walt Disney's "Dumbo the Elephant," who discovered (when he lost his mouse) that elephants could indeed fly if they had the proper will power. Or, if you want to go highbrow, you might delve into the penetralia of William James' "Will To Believe." In any event, kivals, blast off!
"mangled metaphor"? The analogy was based on the idea that technical problems that once seemed insurmountable can be often overcome through persistence and trial and error and had nothing to do with any childish association with "liftoff." You should not be so rude to someone you do not know, particularly when you reveal yourself to be mired in pedestrian and trivial avenues of thought. What a bizarre and disjointed response full of non sequiturs you offered.
Of course rigorous experimentation is unavailable for testing ideas regarding optimizing social organization, and so such optimization remains guesswork, but, as with other human endeavors, trial and error over a fair amount of time in different social environments may offer the hope of progress.
Obviously early attempts to design and implement communistic/socialistic systems to operate in advanced economies in large societies were fundamentally flawed as they were based on the assumption that the values and modes of behavior that had traditionally been prevalent only in small communal groups would function effectively in large groups. Large societies/economies offer a great number of efficiencies but face many difficulties in terms of achieving the same level of social harmony and trust as small groups do and the same social pressures do not exist (in such small groups social status and privileges can be based in large part on a member's contributions to the group, which the other members will be aware of). The virtual anonymity of individual actors presents many opportunities for abuse in a large society (individuals cannot keep up with all the activities/contributions of all members), including the free rider problem along with many problem behaviors that are generally thought of as criminal justice issues.
The free rider problem in particular is difficult to address in socialist systems, but market/capitalist implementations also may have difficulty with it. Property laws are a simple response to free rider problems, with social status and privileges based on property accumulations, which allow for exchanges, because in a simple system property accumulation can be well correlated with contribution or production for contribution. But as the economic system matures, parasitism becomes prevalent and an individual's property accumulation becomes disconnected from the individual's contributions to the society. Also, in a mature system powerful private actors emerge who are able to externalize costs and manipulate a government to serve the private interests.
Experimentation with socialist systems can potentially yield efficient methods for addressing the free rider problem. Certainly the design must include accountability requirements for all participants.
As for the US economic/political system of today, it is simply the result of centuries of a great many individuals pursuing their own interests and consciously or unconsciously applying pressure to mold the system as they did so. It works well for the economic elites and they have little interest in changing it. And since they appear to control the US government, I do not have much hope that the system will change much in the near-term.
I think I am done here as I have little interest in your pedestrian responses.
"Now it's time for the people to reassert their rights."
How about the right to dissove the US government?
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government..."
Let's all sign this petition!
http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html
No petition there (URL) instead the Declaration of the United States
Check out: http://www.freespeechforpeople.org/
Gary
What democracy are we to shed a tear for again?
As noted democracy in the U.S is a long-standing myth. The fact the Supreme Court was configured to and for the benefit of corporations. So the decision is simply another delicious fruit for those in control of corporations as well as those members in Congress whose feeding tubes are symbiotically attached to them while parasitically feeding off the public at large. Of course, this will ripple down the feeding chain to local and state levels. An existing "new and improved" feudal system?
The Supreme Court has lost its way.
The Supreme Court has not lost its way, any more than George Wanker Bush lost his way. These are fascists, in the Mussolini sense of the term, making sure the nation is turned over completely to corporate rule and the average person is reduced to a condition of serfdom. Gone Dead Train.
I am human.
I'm sure you must have meant, "I am human, Inc."
We are carbon units. Corporations want to exterminate us.
I am now over the shock of yesterday's decision, and actually wonder how much real damage this will make to a system that is already corrupt beyond repair. It is simply one more branch of government blatantly showing the extent to which corporations have usurped our democracy, which was never a very vigorous one at that.
If the Obama presidency has been about anything, it is about the limitations inherent in attempting to reform a broken, corrupt, corporate controlled system. Just look at the "health care debate." In only the most corrupt, corporate controlled environment could a prohibition on terminating insurance coverage for people who actually need care be considered "reform." The very need for this kind of measure only points to the depth of the corruption in the first place. Same for the need to force insurance companies to cover those with pre-existing conditions. These are the people who NEED health care the most, so the very fact that insurance companies have been allowed to deny these very folks care points to the degree to which they control the health care system. And if they already wield that much power, how far can reform really go? I won't even begin to argue about the "reforms" Obama is proposing for the banksters.
jp, You have made me think of Naomi Klien's "Shock Doctrine".
The supreme court does a 'shock and awe' on the u.s.!
readytotransform: Exactly- the rise of disaster Capitalism!
Let's see, the Gov't taxes us...then gives/loans our $$$ to Wall Street...then Wall Street uses that $$$ to buy Their politicians.
Alternate scenario: We buy food, clothing, shelter and medical care...then those corporations/people use our $$$ to buy Their politicians.
Slick if you ask me. They only need us for our funds. Hey, have you ever watched the Matrix trilogy? Sorta the same thing.
RE: They only need us for our funds.
Right, we are just "batteries" as in "the Matrix." We keep the system (the Matrix) going. I think the subversive allegory of "the Matrix" is lost on most people. The Matrix is an allegory of the capitalist system. When the character of Thomas Anderson chooses to take the red pill to become Neo, he transforms from the liberal to the revolutionary. Therein lies the solution.
Sioux Rose
TOM: His martial arts skills are a lot better than mine, and yours I presume, too.
If you recall, Neo just downloaded a program to acquire those skills. However, just thinking about my less than svelte body doing martial arts like that makes me wince.
When the constitution was signed into law it gave rights to only 11% of the people living here. Only those with property could vote.
No indentured servant, no native American,no slave, no woman nor any child had rights.
Humans have fought for and died for freedom and rights to be free from the enslavement of the rich.
Scotus created personhood of corporations to give them dominance over we the people. they already own your ass because you work for them at low wages and can throw you out anytime they want. Mostly your health insurance comes from them. The food you eat, the car you drive, the machines that clean your dishes and your clothes,the machines that cook your food, heat your house, make the materials to build your house and provide you with entertainment all come from corporations.
They already own your ass lock stock and barrel. Now they own the laws that govern you. Wakey wakey.
Hopefully by town meeting we will have a town ordinance in our town of less than 1,000 that takes away the personhood of all corporations.
Go ahead sit on your corporate couch watching your corporate media in your corporate heated house and tell me how it is that your military gives you your freedom and liberty and that you actually have a voice in your democracy.
Don't worry be happy you can charge it on your card. Wake the F up.
Sincerely, I wish your town hall meeting actuates this bylaw. Hopefully, the trend will grow throughout your country until corporations are forced to return to their original mandate: to provide a public good and to be disbanded when they cease to do so. Also, the concept that the corporations' first obligation is to increase shareholders' profits is also hokum.
The touching title enforces the lie that the US is (or was at some unspecified time in the past--aka "the good old days") a democracy. It also presupposes that this phantom democracy was some sort of superior form of government worthy of weeping over for its absence.
Let's remember that all manner of things from slavery to racial and gender prejudice have been "democratically" enforced as the law of the land. Dixie seceeded from the union and percipitated the Civil War democratically and today the US enforces the death penalty and all manner of other odious statutes including the "Patriot Act", domestic spying on its citizens, and the suspension of Habeus Corpus "democraticly".
The question they asked Franklin when he left the Constitutional convention was not whether there was a democracy or a monarchy formed, it was whehter there was a monarchy or a republic formed. Franklin's reply is also instructive. He replied "a republic--if you can keep it". He was (as the document he defended plainly proved) only talking to white, male, property owners since those were the only citizens who were enfranchised by that Constitution.
American history has proven that the only changes to this cozy elitist arrangement have had to come through violent upheaval and forceful advocacy often resulting in either the serious injury, deaths, or banishment through imprisonment of those who advocated such changes.
If Robert Weisman wants to shed a tear for anything it ought to be for a people who do not have the spunk, nerve, chutzpah, or courage to similarly challenge the status-quo that their ancestors did in the past.
Poet
Well said, Poet. Combine your sentiments with mine and Abe's, and we're in quite a pickle--and have been for a long time.
The notion of a liberal democracy is that there is always the challenge to greater inclusiveness. Indeed, the rhetoric of our Constitution is the very basis for the the movements you cite. Unfortunately, the times we live in are scary indeed, and we are witnessing a corporate takeover of our political system that really threatens the viability of progressive movements.
I really don't expect to see anything like those movements of the past that you cite, since the machinery of corporate-state repression has grown so much, especially since 9/11. Indeed, I remember thinking the morning of the attack, "there goes every progressive social and environmental movement, since we will all be labelled terrorists now." Granted, many of these movements had already been on watch lists and under surveillance. Making matters worse, there is a growing tolerance for persecution and even torture in public discourse that I still find shocking. Suspected "illegals" are shunted off to domestic black sites, denied basic rights, often including medical care with little public outcry except in the progressive media. And I don't need to go into how torture has now become a seemingly acceptable practice against those who threaten domestic "security." To paraphrase somebody, "we are all terrorists now."
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable"
John F. Kennedy speaking at the foreign minster's meeting on the first anniversary of the Organization of American States.
Poet
By Decree: Only Corporations are Human.
People now belong to the corporations to do with as they wish.
Goodby Democracy. Goodby to the Republic for which it stands.
We must now Pledge Allegiance to Corporate Aristocracy and Fascism!
Voting will not help anymore.
Sad, but true. The only country that has been taken over by Fascists cuz they were too lazy and stupid to defend their own freedoms.
I wouldn't be too hard on the author. His list of proposals constitute the only non-violent course of actions possible. The other alternative is repeating 1774-6--forming an alternative government and then declaring independence from the Empire, which as the Civil War shows will likely be violent. Can homegrown patriots lacking advanced weaponry again defeat the reigning military superpower? What government(s) will the fledgling government attract as ally? Tens of Millions in the USA are already so apathetic they don't even bother to vote; so, adding them to a roughly equal amount of Tories gives you about 60 Million people who will form part of the "White" army's resistence. How many Millions can the "Red" forces gather? These are all important questions. And currently, the only people agitating for Revolution are the Tea Baggers, whose often misguided actions are directed by the same forces they say they oppose.
Any insurgency will be labeled terrorist despite its goal to overthrow State Terror. And the Surveilence State will quickly arrest anyone actively organizing rebellion.
It seems clear to me that we must form a Movement and travel the non-violent path first. The Great Recession will continue to worsen, radicalizing more of the populace as time moves forward. Well over 20% of the workforce is un- and underemployed--40+ Million, or 40% of the 2000 electorate. I think for this Movement to succeed, over 50% of the populace--160 Million--must participate. Eliminating money from politics has mass appeal, so I think such a Movement is possible.
Weissman sez: "...the Fair Elections Now Act, which would provide congressional candidates with an alternative to corporate-funded campaigns before fundraising for the 2010 election is in full swing."
***
With all due respect, fundraising for the 2010 election was "in full swing" the day after the '08 election (for congressfolk) and the day after the '04 election (for senators).
Know Thy Enemy
What is a Corporation? A Corporation is a legally constructed association that is chartered by a state, composed of an entity separate from its owners.
This form of business is characterized by the limited liability of its owners, the issuance of shares of easily transferable stock, existence as a going concern. a executive bureaucratic structure, has limited liability whereas if a corporation fails, shareholders normally only stand to lose their investment, employees will lose their jobs, but neither will be further liable for debts that remain owing to the corporation's creditors, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and furthermore balances the interests of the management who operate the corporation; creditors who loan it goods, services or money; shareholders who invest their capital; the employees who contribute their labor; and the clients they serve.
Corproations have defined legal rights under corpoate law; the law treats a corporation as a legal "person" that has standing to sue and be sued, distinct from its stockholders. The legal independence of a corporation prevents shareholders from being personally liable for corporate debts. It also allows stockholders to sue the corporation through a derivative suit and makes ownership in the company (shares) easily transferable. The legal "person" status of corporations gives the business perpetual life; deaths of officials or stockholders do not alter the corporation's structure.
Whew!
Gary
"I'm tired of being lied to by government, by the media, and by every corporation I have anything to do with."
-- L. Neil Smith
I think that Ralph Nader has the best solution--abolish corporate personhood. This strikes the root of the problem.
The government created corporate personhood, the government can abolish it as well. The challenge is to persuade the government to abolish corporate personhood.
As Gary points out below, the only real way to end corporate personhood is to eliminate the corporate business form altogether, which could be implemented by individual states.
A rabid dog that threatens a community is eliminated by that community to end its threat. The corporation is no different from the rabid dog.
Where is an Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird) when we need him; "best shot in the county?"
Gary
Wish I would have read this piece sooner. Sign a petition. I did.
Mr. Weissman states the situation correctly. The process is difficult and dangerous but this is the issue of our time, not just for America but for the whole planetary community.
Allowing this to stand will coronate the age of corporatism, and the other aspects of humanity be damned.
As far as petitions are concerned. I have a serious question for anyone who wishes to respond.
Who gets them and what do they actually accomplish? It seems i have signed so many in the past ten years.
I signed one about the supreme court decision yesterday. I don't even remember the name of it. And i have seen several since then.
Thanks all......
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Corporate States of America, and to the Oligarchy for which it stands, one rigged Market under the Almighty Dollar with debt peonage and kleptocracy for all."
Wrong, do you have any idea how long will building, organizing and supporting an opposition to the corporate two-party system take? 40 years. You'll be dead.
What works is not paying taxes, taking your savings out of the American banking system and clogging the corrupt courts with lawsuits against the top 100 American CEOs for corruption.
Nothing else works.
Ok, my savings comes out. I'm cashing out my retirement funds- pitiful though they are. And looking into the ramifications of withholding some of my taxes. If enough of us did this, it would finally get someone's attention. We can't just sign petitions- we have to follow up with action too.
I will do this...who will follow me?
Corpoprations a human beings with all the rights of Individuals. Its amazing stretch but in America it kind of fits doesn't it? The wealthy have in essence created Super Humans like how they see themselves.
"The business of America is business"
Corporate toady and really dull guy, President Calvin Cooledge
Poet
The larger the state, the more callous it becomes... the colder its heart. It is also true that the bigger the corporation, the more callous its heart. But unlike the state, corporations have competition and have no police powers.
-- Dennis Prager
But this was written before the rise of private military contractors. And the domination of cartels and monopolies.
Gary
Abolish the corporate form of business organization and revoke the chapters of existing corporations--Kill the corporate form.
Signing petitions, of course, is just a start. This will be dangerous and difficult, and signing petitions is neither.
Just another cogent argument for removing the Congress altogether. As SDS used to say, Let the people decide! In a direct democracy there would be no market in which wealth could be converted to political power.
Who’s Driving the Bus empirePie January 22cnd, 2009
Who’s driving the bus?
I don’t think it is us’
but...
packs of gossamer ghouls are vying to drive
like the ghost driver hoods
drooling ducats... for speech
the no goods... of more goods
more bountiful than fortunes five hundred
juggled juggernauts of disfunction
like bottomed up buckets of dolts
with Coulter clout deep throats
and inertia to take justice to the rack
while...
we all....get the sac
The bountiful blunders of “The Man”
from Katmandu to Disasterstan
disengage those neutral...
as justice goes slack
The ducat deemed trust
have a route for the bust
and I hat to say it..
It’s us... Yes it’s us.
No tear will be shed by most of the world, I'm sure of that. America had it coming.
For all the genocide, illegal invasions, bombings, engineering of coups and economic explotation in the last 70 years, America deserves much worse.
You, the people of the USA, are the only country on earth that's still governed by rules that were laid down in the 18th century.
You, the people, for some reason have never questioned why rules that worked for a handful of people at a time of monarchies all over the world - hence your elected "monarch" for 4 years - are deemed to be adequate 200+ years down the road.
You, the people, have never seriously questioned a hopelessly ossified and inefficient governance structure. Just look at how long it takes a bill to pass Congress. Horse-carriage time.
You, the people, live with Supreme Court judges who contrary to many other democracies don't have to retire at a certain age. You live with the fact that any president - monarch - can shrewdly influence the political direction your Supreme Court will follow for decades because his appointees might sit there for decades.
You, the people, have never demanded what any other self-respecting democracy would have demanded: Another Philadelphia Convention to adjust the US to the 21st century (you should have had one regularly anyway, and as far as I remember, Jefferson or some other one of the founding fathers even wrote so.)
So this whining about the predictable - considering the Right's judges - fallout of the actions of the most antiquated structure in any democracy on earth get you exactly nowhere.
Start at the root: Modernize your entire system. That's what you, the people of the United States, should go for.
This latest Supreme Court ruling was just exhibit # zillion why such an overhaul is overdue.
Greetings from Europe.