There has been much speculation surrounding the recent Citizen’s United supreme court ruling, ranging from those who assert that now foreign-owned corporations can and will spend unlimited money to influence American elections to those who assert that this was a major victory for free (corporate) speech. But really this is just speculation. While the ruling is indeed disheartening for those of us who do not control a majority interest in a large corporation, its ramifications have been subject to the typical Washington politicization.
For one thing, there is no way to say for sure if this ruling will lead to increased direct advocacy/partisan activity by multi-national or domestic corporations. The big caveat to the effect of this ruling is that any corporation that engages in direct advocacy could easily become the target of negative ad campaigns, which would potentially effect their customer base, thus throwing a blanket of discouragement on the political agendas of these businesses. The bad news though, is that opportunists on K street have already solved that little dilemma.
Talking Points Memo reported on a “Public Policy and Law Alert” issued by lobbying giant K&LGates last week. This alert indicated that hope remains for those politically-minded corporations who want to pour copious amounts of money into a direct advocacy campaign, while avoiding the burden and bad-business of public scrutiny :
“Currently, any entity, including a corporation that spends more than $10,000 per year on electioneering communications, must file a disclosure statement with the FEC, sometimes within 24 hours of the date of a communication’s first public dissemination. That disclosure must state who makes the expenditure, the amount, the election to which the communication was directed, and the names of those entities donating $1,000 or more to the entity making the disbursements for that communication. Furthermore, a corporation (or any non-candidate funding an electioneering communication) must state at the end of a television or radio advertisement that “ABC Corporation is responsible for the content of this advertising” and must do so in a clear, direct way pursuant to certain technical requirements…”
“…most corporations will probably proceed cautiously. If such independent expenditures are made, groups of corporations within an industry may form coalitions or use existing trade associations to support candidates favorable to policy positions that affect the group as a whole. While corporations that contribute to these expenditures might still be disclosed, this indirect approach can provide sufficient cover such that no single contributing entity receives the bulk of public scrutiny. Corporations could further lower their profile in such cases by not making contributions specific to a particular expenditure by that third-party corporation. Such independent expenditures can also take the form of advertisements in “under-the radar” sources, such as ideologically-based talk radio, web-based ads or phone banks.”
The thing that still gets me is how the individuals who make the decisions about how a corporation’s money is spent (ceos, board of executives, share holders) are essentially endowed with more rights than individuals such as me, who have no controlling interest in any corporations. Let me explain :
These folks undoubtedly participate in and have an interest in the affairs of a corporation because they see some benefit for themselves (most notably and commonly – they make money because of their involvement in the corporation). So these individuals are already benefiting from their participation in the corporation because it generates some form of income for them. At the same time, these individuals can donate any amount of money into any political campaign, advocacy campaign and so on. The individuals who comprise the corporation had that right – the same right that I currently have – before this supreme court ruling. But now, they have an extra right, a special right that only these folks enjoy. They get to use funds that are not their own personal funds, that are business funds, to advance their own personal agendas (if controlling agents coalesce around issues).
Imagine a scenario where a state is legislating on minimum wage laws, and for fun, lets place this scenario in a tea party conservative’s fantasy – the state is legislating on abolishing minimum wage laws. Now, it would be easy to see how a corporation that has numerous employees could seek to benefit from the abolition of minimum wage laws, so in our scenario this corporation will be donating copious amounts of cash to not only electoral candidates who support the abolition but also to advocacy groups who support it and to other media campaigns supporting their agenda. This is now their right. On top of the expenditure of business funds, each individual who shares a controlling interest in the corporation may also donate as much cash as they like to support direct advocacy campaigns or electoral candidates. But the effect of the passing of this piece of legislation, whose chances of passing become greater as more money is funneled into the campaign, is clearly detrimental to and against the interest of the employees of that corporation (both present and future employees). Yet the employees are likely to have zero say in the decision made to donate to such campaigns, even though the money being used is in part a product of their labors. The one caveat in this scenario is that the employees, if unionized, can now use union funds to advance their interests in political issues (however, this is a obscenely disproportionate caveat as the only sector of our economy that is unionized to any significant degree are federal employees).
Why in the world is our government actively creating these scenarios? The supreme court ruled in an astonishing rebuke to the balance of influence in politics, removing any barrier from allowing already powerful interests to leverage their power more greatly. The consequences of such a ruling are uncertain, but the fact remains that the ruling set the stage for a remarkable shift in power/influence in American domestic politics that favors large corporations and foreign subsidiaries over individual citizens.
My opinion remains steadfast that no such change was necessary, as the extra rights bestowed upon corporations were already guaranteed to the individuals who comprise those corporations, and that legislative action or constitutional amending will be necessary to re-align the laws governing political activity with our Constitutional tenet of individual rights.
I know the tea-baggers love them some individual rights and freedoms, but remind me – do they support those rights being granted to corporations ? Are they and the Republicans willing to damn their credibility on and emphasis upon the Constitutional rights of the individual to curry the good graces of their corporate sponsors?
