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-Abraham Lincoln
On this morning, January 21st, 2010, the U.S. government, now a democracy in theory alone, has officially been handed over to the highest bidders. The United States Supreme Court, in a bitter 5-4 decision regarding Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, has given corporations and unions the power to spend their vast sums of wealth (billions of dollars in the case of many) to influence elections. While corporations cannot donate directly to candidates, this hardly matters. They are now able to use their full wealth to run advertisements, commercials, etc. in favor or against any candidate. Such a situation is actually better for them than donating to a candidate, because corporations can now retain full and complete control over their messaging or misinformation campaigns.
Real World Implications
How can this affect elections (including the 2010 midterm elections)? The following point was made by Michael Waldman, an NYU law professor, in a discussion on the nytimes.com:
"Why will this matter? Isn’t there a lot of money sloshing around in politics already? Consider Exxon-Mobil. In 2008, its political action committee (PAC) raised about $1 million from its employees and offices. Its profits that year -– which it was legally barred from pouring into politics -– were $45 billion. It was illegal for Exxon to spend that money on elections; now with this decision, it will be legal. Exxon or any other firm could spend Bloomberg-level sums in any congressional district in the country against, say, any congressman who supports climate change legislation, or health care, etc."That's right. Any corporation can now spend infinite sums of money (tens of millions of dollars or more) in an effort to defeat or elect any candidate in any district. Suppose a coal mining company in rural West Virginia wants to blow the top off another mountain and also prefers to dump its waste in the local water supply. It can now spend vast sums of money in a poor, rural district to elect a Representative who will advocate for their plans. They can run ads full of manipulation and misinformation so long as it stays just inside the laws of libel. They can do the same in all adjacent districts, and no counterbalance exists in terms of economic power. The "good government people's advocate" candidate has no multi-billion dollar ally to act as his de-facto campaign.
Corporations = Human Beings
In the majority opinion, Justices Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Kennedy, and Scalia contend that the First Amendment grants multination corporations the same right to "free speech" as individual citizens. "Free Speech" includes millions of dollars of advertising, apparently. Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the dissenting opinion, said the majority opinion was profoundly erring in granting corporate speech the same protections as the speech of human beings. One would think something that absurdly, patently, and painfully obvious would resonate within the highest court in the land. Perhaps if the Court were not nakedly political in nature it would. Which brings me to my next point.
Judicial Activism
For decades, the rhetoric of the right has been to accuse those on the left of "judicial activism." The idea of judicial activism is that justices do not simply rule on the case before them, but manipulate cases to "find" a more expansive or irrelevant matter on which to rule, so as to "create" new laws and precedents which they were never supposed to be considering in the first place. The accusation is also thrown about when opinions overturn past rulings by the Supreme Court. BOTH OF THESE MANEUVERS WERE EMPLOYED BY THE CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY.
The original case was meant to determine the constitutionality of one provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. A documentary produced by a conservative nonprofit organization which sought to smear then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was set to be broadcast as a video-on-demand showcase with television advertisements to promote it. The McCain-Feingold law prohibits the broadcast of "electioneering communications" (excepting campaign ads and other approved communications) within 30 days of a presidential primary election and 60 days of a general election.
Instead of ruling on these narrow grounds alone, the court took it upon itself to re-hear settled law so as to rule on a profoundly more expansive idea of corporate spending to influence elections. The settled cases suddenly re-introduced (a very rare move) were Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission. This was a blatant power grab by the court and the very definition of judicial activism.
In the words of Justice John Paul Stevens, "'Essentially, five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law." Justice Antonin Scalia alone, a vocal and vociferous critic of what he calls judicial activism, has proven once again to be the embodiment of raw political arrogance and hypocrisy.
Remedy?
The idea that corporations can use their billions of dollars to directly and overtly influence American elections, even beyond the iron-clad grasp they already enjoy, is perhaps the greatest threat to democracy that this country has even seen. That is not hyperbole and was, in fact, one of the greatest fears of many of the founding fathers. I predict this ruling will have an impact even on this upcoming midterm election. The Supreme Court is the final arbiter in our system of government. Only a Constitutional Amendment can directly overrule this decision (or a future ruling by a different Supreme Court.) A Constitutional Amendment requires a two-thirds vote of approval by the Congress and then must be ratified by the legislatures of three-quarters of the states. We just witnessed the abject failure of a Democratically controlled Senate to reach sixty votes in favor of a pro-corporate health care giveaway to insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Does any realistic hope exist for altering our Constitution in favor of a more democratic union?
To dream that the already corporate-owned U.S. Congress would ever approve a Constitutional Amendment limiting corporate influence is akin to dreaming that a race of benevolent unicorns will appear from the heavens sprinkling a magic fairy dust in our water supply that cures cancer, male pattern baldness, and Glenn Beck. To then hope that three-quarters of our states' legislatures would ratify such a measure is as productive as hoping that all teenage boys will forswear masturbation until the age of twenty-four.
The only small hope that this brings is that Congressional progressives can force measures (through reconciliation) that provide public financing for campaigns. This could act as a slight counterbalance to corporate behemoths. The only other possibility I can imagine that restores democracy involves pitchforks, torches, and millions of angry people taking to the streets. Until American Idol is finally canceled, I won't hold my breath.
