What's So Bad About Citizens United?

Until yesterday, corporations could speak directly on issues. Corporations could also set up PACs which individual shareholders and employees could contribute to, and that PAC could advocate for or against candidates. But up until yesterday, corporations could not use their general revenues to elect or defeat a candidate. Those revenues are far, far greater in magnitude than what PACs could raise before.

This effectively gives the officers and directors of large corporations the ability to use their shareholders' money in a way they may not be aware of or even agree with in order to determine the outcome of specific elections, changing the makeup of specific Congressional committees, say. (You could argue that corporate governance would limit this practice, but we don't know for sure yet. It's a brave new world.)

Worse from the perspective of about half the population, these corporate expenditures will be made overwhelmingly in favor of one party, the GOP, because the CEO class is ideologically conservative. The conservatives on the supreme court have once again put a thumb on the scales to help their party, just as they did in the 2000 election.

I don't think a constitutional amendment to make the Free Speech clause inapplicable to for-profit corporations is either realistic or worthwhile. But an interesting question would be whether state corporate laws could limit the powers of businesses from making expenditures advocating for the election or defeat of any candidate. Since, presumably, each state could abolish their corporate laws and exclude corporations from their borders, I would think they would also have the authority to take this lesser step of limiting the things they may do. However, I don't put it past the conservatives on the Supreme Court to decide there is a "natural right" to incorporate, since they seem totally results-oriented.

Comments

[upyernoz]

i'm not sure i follow you in that last paragraph. you're saying that a constitutional amendment to make the first amendment inapplicable to for-profit corporations isn't realistic, but each state in the union abolishing corporations within their border is?

honestly, the only realistic solution to the citizens united case is to hope that obama (or another dem) gets to replace a few conservative justices and then hope that the court overrules this stinky radical decision. it's a long shot and will take a long time, but it has the advantage over every other thing i've heard in that i can imagine it actually happening some day.

[Mithras]

You're right, I wasn't clear. I had two thoughts: First, amending just Delaware's corporate law would be sufficient, since almost all large publicly- traded corporations were formed there. I don't think that's likely, either, but it's more likely than a federal constitutional amendment v

I was also thinking about how that fact - that a state legislature could overturn the effect of this decision - should affect the constitutional argument. Basically, if the states have the power to put corporations to death, why should government generally lack the authority to limit what they do?

[Max Kennerly]

"Basically, if the states have the power to put corporations to death, why should government generally lack the authority to limit what they do?"

One of the more forceful proponents of that idea was CJ Rehnquist, who often said that talk of "rights" for corporations confused metaphor with reality, which I think is a nice way to put it.

To be honest, though I'm strongly opposed to the Citizens United decision, I'm genuinely curious how things will shake out. Most of the big, powerful corporations already approach politics gingerly, for fear of alienating shareholders or inviting retaliation from politicians they didn't support. I wouldn't be surprised if politics on the national level didn't change much.

The bigger problem is in local elections, like for state representatives. I can definitely seeing a prison company spending ~$1m — a fortune in a local race — to defeat a candidate opposed to building a new prison in the district.

And that's a big problem for democracy.