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Fight Campaign Finance Ruling, One Step at a Time
Doris "Granny D" Haddock turned 100 this week, just in time to see
the US Supreme Court decimate the work of her life. Back in 1999, the
Dublin, N.H. woman walked 3,200 miles to support campaign finance
reform legislation - a tiny crusader against the corrupting power of
big money in American politics. She marched to give the people's voice
a fighting chance against the megaphones owned by the wealthy and
well-connected. Last week, the court gave those forces an even bigger
bull horn, ruling that corporate and special-interest cash can't be
restricted in federal elections.
Happy birthday.
The court's decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission effectively guts the McCain-Feingold law Granny D was marching to support. It almost certainly overrides Massachusetts laws that ban corporate expenditures in local races. It even allows unlimited company cash to be spent in judicial elections, which, thankfully, don't exist in this state.
The decision wasn't a complete surprise. Since 1976, when the court ruled in Buckley vs. Valeo that money is a form of speech, it has been difficult to design workable limits on campaign spending. Still, the Citizens decision upends even marginal efforts to rein in campaign cash by conferring free-speech rights on businesses and special-interest groups. Hey, corporations are people, too.
The court leaned heavily on a 1978 decision involving a Massachusetts case,
Last week the court dismissed that distinction as a mere footnote. And, even though the court repeatedly has recognized the potential corruption in unlimited campaign cash, Justice Anthony Kennedy blithely shrugged off the effects of this decision on an already angry and cynical populace. "The appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy,'' he wrote. As if wishing would make it so.
The problem is that corporations by definition don't have the electorate's interest at heart. They are driven, indeed required, to maximize their profits. It seems unlikely that any corporation will spend big to support a candidate whose platform - on environmental regulation, consumer protection, or corporate bonuses - would cost it money.
Although Citizens United also lifts restrictions on spending by unions and non-profits, organized labor is dwarfed by a corporate sector with trillions in revenue. Plus, workers can withhold a portion of their union dues or fees that go to political activities they object to. Company shareholders don't currently have that right, short of dumping their stock. Far from promoting free speech, the Citizens ruling could actually coerce speech by forcing shareholders - or workers or consumers - to subsidize a politics they don't like.
President Obama called on Congress to correct certain effects of the court's ruling in his State of the Union address Wednesday. Some support "stand by your ad'' laws that now apply to candidates, requiring a company's CEO personally to say "I approve this message.'' If corporations are people, the reasoning goes, let's see their faces. Another fix would require the approval of shareholders before corporations could spend on political campaigns.
But aggrieved citizens need not wait for new laws. Last fall Apple,
Democracy is hard work. It requires constant vigilance, and a citizenry willing to speak out when public officials - or private corporations - use their power to distort the political process.
As dignitaries feted Granny D at the New Hampshire State House yesterday, she had some words on her blog for the Supreme Court: "You force us to defend our democracy - a democracy of the people and not the corporations - by going in breathtaking new directions,'' she wrote, "And so we shall.''
You heard the lady. Time to lace up the sneakers.
- Posted in
17 Comments so far
Show AllJustice Anthony Kennedy is a fool. Of course this idiotic decision harms democracy. It makes a class of super-citizens with nearly unlimited funding to influence elections and thereby "buy" candidates and our representatives.
Large corporations by their very nature are a corruption of the Market. Now, unfettered, their citizenship is license for total corruption of the system and a final escalation of the ruling oligarchy.
Gary
"All governments use force and all assert that they are founded on reason. In fact, whether universal suffrage prevails or not, it is always an oligarchy that governs, finding ways to give to'the will of the people'the expression which the few desire."
-- Vilfredo Pareto, quoted in Arthur Livingstone (ed) The Mind and Society (1935)
Time for a constitutional amendment. Please add your name:
http://www.movetoamend.org/
Thank you.
I wonder if some people will become violent over this ruling. I doubt it; nor do I believe there will be much change through the the electoral process. Most incumbents will be reelected.
It is beginning to look like change will only come when some constituents start pumping rounds into their representatives. But, at that point the nation will become ungovernable and civil war will rip this nation into small oppressive military camps.
Thank you Wall Street.
If a corporation is a person and "all men are created equal" then I demand that I be given a minimum of one million dollars by the government to express my opinion herewith. Otherwise, this American maxim is simply untrue.
Last night I asked some Bay Area activists what organizations are prepared to fight this Court ruling. The initial answer is that Code Pink is planning to fight this actively. MoveOn.org was also mentioned, but I don't know if they're prepared to go to the streets in nonviolent protests. At least one person suggested we need a coalition that's able also to include any "conservatives" willing to fight the ruling, but I've only heard Paul Craig Roberts speak out so far (see http://counterpunch.org/roberts01272010.html ), so that is still evolving.
As I get more information, I'll post it.
NO to gradualism. Nothing less than a constitutional amendment denying corporations personhood and full public financing of elections. Those who are merely settling for banning foreign corporate money should be completely ignored--they are part of the problem
"You force us to defend our democracy - a democracy of the people and not the corporations - by going in breathtaking new directions," she wrote, "And so we shall."
Fightin' words! Thanks Mrs Haddock.
This is a good piece of timely journalism, but I am baffled by the author's assertion that "aggrieved people need not wait for new laws."
What does the example of a handful of big corporate people (Nike, Apple, and some green energy corporations) recently withdrawing from the US Chamber of Commerce have to do with the US Supreme Court ruling gutting McCain Feingold campaign finance protections? Is the notion here supposed to be that individual citizens can somehow deter behemoth corporations from abusing their newfound Constitutional "free speech" rights by threatening to withdraw accounts from Citibank, boycotting Exxon products at the gas pump, or by writing nasty protest letters to the CEO or Board members of Blue Cross/Blue Shield in support of a single payer health care system?
I just don't get it.
New laws in response to the Roberts' Supreme Court's bizarre ruling on corporate personhood clearly are needed. And if amending the United States Constitution is the route eventually taken, where do you suppose those big corporate persons in our midst are going to put their free speech money during the ratification campaign?
Bill from Saginaw
I'd say we now have clear evidence of corporate malfeasance and influence of the Republic's leadership triad. The only new laws we need are to provide direct democracy.
We need laws to choke off campaign spending, too.
People can be misled, and it's of little use to complain that people should be better educated than we are.
Something form of equal time for all candidates should be supported, too. The railroading of all but a few candidates in both primary and special election should be banned.
I'm glad to see Granny D still doesn't give a sh*t about what people think and puts her mind where it matters most. I was fortunate to meet her 7 years ago while working for MPIRG. (Minnesota Public Interest Research Group) (BTW don't say PIRGs when dealing with MPIRG, it's not part of the national PIRG's) We were working on publicly funded elections. It's fortunate to say that for the most part, Minnesota went that route, along with having same day voter registration. (Which had already been in place since the 1980's....thanks in large par to MPIRG.) It was wonderful to meet such a strong and insightful person at the young age of 93. It was then, and always will be a learning experience. You're never too young or old to be an inspiration.
Best available action now:
www.movetoamend.org.
Promoting constitutional amendments to end corporate "personhood" and the equation of money with speech. A long, hard slog, but in the meantime a powerful organizing tool.
Endorsed by the Oregon Pacific Green Party and signed by the cochairs of the national Green Party.
Very much a long, hard slog. Speaking as someone who marched for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in Philadelphia, Chicago, and elsewhere only to find it fall just short of ratification, recognize that amending the US Constitution may well be a powerful grassroots organizing tool, but the process was deliberately set up to be an arduous, complex task. There are also wars to end, and other critically pressing economic, social justice, and environmental issues.
And where do you think the big corporate persons in our midst will put their free speech money during the ratification campaign? I'm not saying I won't support a proposed Constitutional amendment. I just think statutory remedies defining the responsibilities of corporate personhood might work better and have a more immediate impact.
Bill from Saginaw
Thanks. I'm there. Let's get something specifically directed to take the $$ out of campaigns, too. Public referenda!
Is it permissable to shout 'Money!' in a crowded theater (and thereby create a riot)?
One thing which would help is law to prohibit lying, and libeling candidates. One might argue that money, inherently, is a lie -- or at least not the truth, nor a sound argument in political debate. Money is a logical falacy, uncoupled from reality (especially in recent years), and repetition just a technique of propaganda and brainwashing. It is a fiction -- as are corporations themselves.
The people need to equate political advertising with claims that switching to some brand of cigarette or beer will get you popularity and sex. Many do already, but what is really need is to develop good alternatives to the two wings of the fascist party -- and that remains the major challenge for people today. That's the challenge which, if met, will change everything, and if unmet, will doom us to destruction.
In this conversation it is vital to remember that corporations are run by people---a very tiny minority of demographically homogenous people who are the officers and directors. This is the top 1% that controls 80%(+/-) of the wealth of this country.
Now they can play politics "with other people's money", too.
It is to this tiny minority that the SCOTUS has bestowed super-human "rights".
That is fact.
This is opinion:
By the time these people float to the top of a corporate heirarchy, they are quite likely to present the familiar signs of psychopathology generally attributed to "corporations". (Or it may be that they float up BECAUSE of those characteristics.)
Logically so. And downright scary.
The patients are running the asylum.
CORP IS BORG.
Does anyone realize that the only way for the poeple on top to stay on top is to keep pushing the rest of us down.