Citizens United v FEC
 

There's a huge campaign finance case being heard today at the Supreme Court. In short, the court will decide whether the current bans on direct contributions from corporations and unions are constitutional. A reversal could be the first step in dismantling all of the federal laws on campaign finance. Here's the NPR story, by Nina Totenberg, on the case:

dola

One of the more interesting aspect of this for me is how it would open the door to foreign funding of campaigns. Corporations are now international entities regardless of where they are based. What's to stop a foreigner or a foreign government from incorporating in the US and then anonymously pouring money in to a favored campaign?

By a fairly thin margin, I'd prefer to see a lot of the current provisions struck down ... which usually means that the other side has very little to worry about since I'm more often than not on the down side of SCOTUS rulings.

we need real campaign finance reform to make it more difficult for corporations and special interests to buy politicians

Corporations already own the government, it can't get that much worse right?

From other threads, a lot of people seem to think that foreign terrorists have constitutional rights. Shouldn't those same people think foreign entities have a constitutional right to free speach?

And lots of people want to prosecute corporations criminally, which of course means that corporations have certain constitutional rights in that process. But do we only give them rights associated with criminal procedure, and restrict them from others we don't want them to have (like free speech)?

If we just mix and match and pick and choose who has which constitutional right, based on how desirable the outcome is, what does the constitution matter?

:+1:


I guess I am in the minority who thinks that foreigners have no US constitutional rights, because they are, in fact, NOT US citizens. The whole thing in Guantanamo, while i don't condone torture persay, is a joke to say the least. Giving these people US constitutional rights is absurd.

I also believe that it should be harder, not easier, to pour money into a political campaign by corporations. Just my opinion of course.

"The nation's campaign finance laws date back to the early 1900s, an era of freewheeling corporate monopolies and uninhibited corporate influence in politics."
-Ah, yes, so different from today

"Olson maintains that corporations are individuals, in a constitutional sense, and should be able to express their views. Money, he says, is speech."
-I've never understood both parts of this line of reasoning. One, how does money guarantee free speech? And how did we get to such a corrupt point where a corporation is entitled to the same protections under the law as an individual person?

This is one of those rulings that scares me. I've long maintained that the biggest single way to "clean up" Washington would be publicly funded elections or, at the very least, extremely strict caps on election spending.

It's also the type of thing that frustrates me about America these days. It's such a huge, important case that people will look back on years from now but you can't get people to pay attention to now because they don't understand the gravity of it. This is the type of thing CNN should be covering with wall-to-wall news instead of whatever some non-celebrity is doing or some missing white woman but people just don't understand the gravity of the situation.

SI

I don't think it's necessarily mixing and matching to decide what rights a corporation should have. A corporation is an invention, a legal entity we create. We get to decide, as a society, anything we want about it. You certainly have a point that people need to think clearly on this, but I think it's not inconsistent to pick and choose rights in this case.

:popcorn:

Just to clarify this - you believe that it'd be ok for an American arrested abroad to be subjected to torture or imprisonment without trial in a similar manner?

You can't pick and choose who should be treated according to laws imho, if you set down laws then everyone should follow them - I sincerely believe that a society is judged by how it treats its lesser mmbers whether those are criminals, foreign nationals or the poor.

(as an aside as a 'foreigner' if the US didn't treat me fairly I sure as heck wouldn't be living over here and I think you'd probably find that the amount of tourists visiting would decrease somewhat ;))

There's a difference between "OK" and constitutionality. Iran and North Korea both recently imprisoned American citizens. That's not cool, but the governments of North Korea and Iran certainly aren't bound by the U.S. constitution, just as we're not bound by their laws.

As for foreigners - I think the constitution (the entire constitution) applies to individual U.S. citizens and those individuals living here legally, and that's it. Certainly not corporations and certainly not foreign terrorists.

Is there a way to ensure that we're not

a. falsely imprisoning people
b. torturing those we've imprisoned

without "giving these people US constitutional rights"? Or is this an all or nothing thing?

Definitely not an all or nothing thing. We can protect foreign prisoners all we want. Just like police departments and state appellate courts can go further than what is required by the constitution. The constitution is just a floor of guarantees.

But if we want to give them actual constitutional rights, they (and foreign non-terrorists) are going to want them to, and it would be a reasonable request.

Then who is in favor of giving "foreign terrorists constitutional rights"? Have I missed that?

Never said this, or even implied it for that matter. Not sure where you got this from or where you are going with it. Many other countries do not follow the same "laws" that we follow/created. Of course I do not want Americans to be tortured/arrested/imprisoned abroad, that is an absurd statement.


Once again, what you are saying really makes no sense. The people being imprisoned in Gitmo were accused of terrorism and other crimes. I have no way of knowing if they were guilty of these crimes or not, but to say that they weren't being "treated fairly" and comparing this to a level of tourism in the US is just absurd. Perhaps they did not deserve the treatment they received, but I am not the one to determine that.

Criminals should be treated as what they are: criminals. Geneva gave certain rights to prisoners of war, but I am pretty sure that this did not include anything about non-citizens of the US obtaining US Constitutional rights.

The Supreme court, at least in terms of habeus corpus, at GITMO, because the U.S. has control over that area.

Otherwise, those who argue that foreign prisoners must be tried in civilian courts, are presumably arguing that they all have full constitutional guarantees (can you have a U.S. "civilian" trial without the associated constitutional rights)? (That argument though, might be turning into a fringe opinion, though it was much more common when Bush was president).

I was just referring to what Molson said. Not pointing to anyone in particular.

I haven't been following all the threads Molson references, but are we equating the Geneva Convention with "constitutional rights"? Because I believe the Geneva Convention is the guideline we're supposed to be using with regards to foreign combatants/terrorists.....

Not sure who you mean since I've never argued that foreign born terrorists have constitutional rights.

It's amazing that you can make so many complaints about generalizations.

You missed the first sentence of my post, "From other threads, a lot of people", not "JPhillips".

Many people here have argued that foreign terrorists are entitled to civilian trials in civilian U.S. courts. I can't remember if you were one. But now that Obama is going along with the status quo, it seems he's given people "moral permission" to stop demanding that, as they did under Bush.

A civilian trial assumes constitutional rights. If you have a civilian trial without the constitutional rights - it's just a military tribunal.

I wasn't equating these two things, just mentioning them in the same paragraph. The Geneva convention gives certain basic rights to prisoners of war. These rights should be extended to terrorists, if in fact, it is considered a "war". In no fathomable way, at least in my opinion, should US constitutional rights ever be offered to non-US citizen terrorists, convicted or otherwise.

uniformed foreign combatants yes. terrorists...not necessarily (although I suppose we could voluntarily if we you know...wanted to take the high road).

JPhillips,

I'm wondering just how boisterous you want our sea of liberty to be. Jefferson, after all, had no problem with Citizen Genet coming over here and attempting to influence our politics. :)

As for ending private funding of campaigns, that's really not what this issue is about. Rather, it's about whether or not groups of individuals, acting together, will have a robust 1st Amendment when it comes to political speech, or whether or not we'll be shut up while millionaires and billionaires can spend their money in individual support or opposition of candidates.

Unfortunately, I am leaning towards the latter actually happening.

No, it's not about ending private funding of campaigns. But a ruling against campaign finance legislation gets us one large step further away from, not closer to such a situation.

I find the wording of your second sentence interesting as it could be construed either way as to who you are talking about.

SI

Well that's the thing. If George Soros or T. Boone Pickens want to spend $100,000,000 promoting their favorite candidate, or bashing their least favorite, that's going to continue to be fine and dandy. If 10,000,000 Americans want to band together and each contribute $10 to counter Soros or Pickens with ads of their own, do we really want them to be silenced?

Soros, after all, has given millions of bucks to groups promoting campaign finance reform like Democracy 21, because people like him are going to be the chief beneficiaries of tight restrictions on corporate or group spending.

I'm not a millionaire or a billionaire, if that helps to clarify things.

Maybe I misunderstand campaign financing, but isn't the option open to 10,000,000 Americans right now, by donating to the appropriate political campaign or group?

To be honest I'm not sure where I stand right now, but I do think that the court's decision to expand the scope of this case to cover corporate and union spending has the potential to lead to a major overhaul of campaign spending.

As to your other points, the restrictions on advertising that this case originally was limited to apply equally to Pickens/Soros or Citizen's United. As I understand it the problem isn't that CU was silenced, but that they ran afoul of spending and disclosure rules that apply equally.

And I'm surprised that you're supporting such activist judges to repeal the will of the people as carried out by their representatives. :p

they are only "activist" if it runs counter to your personal philosophy

I'm not well-versed enough on this topic to know what should happen, but it's an interesting read. Lots to think about. Thanks for posting, JPhillips.

Exceptionally good spin here. Reading this at face value "corporations" are only groups of individuals who come together to pool money for a specific political purpose.

Now, while that's certainly the case, it seems a pretty big omission to not mention that the invalidation of these laws would also allow such things as BP, Airbus, GE, etc... to drop millions or even billions of their shareholders' dollars into political campaigns, or independent political ads, unfettered. Surely that needs to be a consideration, no?


The crux of the problem here seems to me to be the fact that in today's media environment, it is incredibly hard to undo the effects of bad publicity (whether based on truth or simply outright lies), especially in a timely manner as required by the realities of today's political campaigns. I don't know how you solve this.

You can't. Especially with "tweets"....

I think it's more an issue for shareholders than the government.

Maybe we're going to start bailing out every floundering corporation in order to give the government control of their spending.

Isn't bailing out these corporations, with the American people subsequently "owning" them, fairly similar to socialism/communism?

Hmmm, that is certainly a unique way to look at it, Roma.

Here's the analysis of the oral arguments from SCOTUSBlog:

Nothing found for Wp Analysis-two-precedents-in-jeopardy #more-10669

Interesting tidbit about Chief Justice Roberts and Solicitor General Elena Kagan:

Not really. Let's go back to what you said.



I, as a private individual can spend money in support or opposition of candidates currently. And, in fact, I can spend just as much as your later mentioned George Soros or T. Boone Pickens- we are each limited to $2000. If I had their resources, I could try to create an organization where I could try to get others to help bundle their money for a candidate but that's it.

I could create a 527, which is, frankly, a loophole that needs to be subject to the same laws as PACs- but that's pretty much my only avenue and I still cannot directly advocate for or against a candidate. But a ruling in this case against campaign finance and you can kiss this change goodbye.

So, I guess you must be opposed to overturning campaign finance laws as they currently exist.

SI

You've not addressed my point.

You've painted this as a choice between letting "groups of individuals, acting together" pool money to influence campaigns or simply ceding such expenditures (and related influence) to rich individuals. Which altogether misses the influence actual corporations (BP, Alcoa, GE, Pfizer, etc...) would have on campaigns if allowed to use their resources to purchase airtime for this purpose directly. This is important because arguably these corporations have access to a significantly bigger tap of money, collectively, than either "groups of individuals, acting together" or rich individuals.

I'm not, at this point, saying whether or not this would be a bad thing. I'm just saying it's a huge elephant in the room that your argument completely ignores.

Actually, I'd like to see them all go away. Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, after all. I don't have a problem if George Soros wants to spend $100,000,000 on television advertisements that say my candidate is a douche, but I want to be able to get together with some like-minded individuals on my side and counter those advertisements as well.

I care less about donation limits to specific candidates than I do donation limits/restrictions on political speech of outside organizations... probably because I'm much more inclined to donate to an outside organization than an actual candidate. :)

Not sure how accurate it is, but when you think about it....even though we "own" GM, the government is who really owns the company. Imagine this happening nation-wide, across many different industries. I may be way off, but it is eerily similar to communist Russia...

I think nation-wide, across many different industries, and permanently are the key differences.

Very true. I haven't kept up with things, has GM been set free yet, or are we all still stockholders for our government owned automobile company?

IMO, it's the wrong argument. We don't need to protect shareholders against the political actions of the corporations in which they invest because a) the political actions of the corporations (i.e. lobbying, for a simple example) are for the purpose (ostensibly) of maximizing shareholder value and b) if a particular shareholder doesn't like the actions of the company, they can sell their stock.


Again, what these arguments are ignoring is that the political direction of a corporation can be influenced by a relatively small (and potentially very like-minded) group of people: the board and, say, the C-level execs. It's certainly reasonable to assume that in an unfettered system these people may agree to use the enormous capital at their disposal for political ends. After all, they already do this (i.e., lobbying and groups of personal donations) and wield an enormous amount of influence. Now imagine the kind of influence they'd wield if they could simply direct a percentage of their revenues to political ends.

People complained that Obama had so much money at the end of his campaign that he could air a primetime infomercial. The money he spent on that is peanuts compared to what corporations (actual corporations) could spend. Worse, corporations could simply outright lie in these ads and still withstand the cost of litigation for, say, libel/slander, that ensued after the election, in an unfettered system.


Again, I'm not sure how you fix all of this, I'm just saying that if we're somehow viewing this as a fight for the rights of "groups of individuals, acting together" to have equal influence to the Pickens & Soros of the world, be aware of the unintended consequences.

It's only "similar" to socialism if the government uses its ownership to direct the day-to-day activities of the company. Which the Obama Administration has not done and, in fact, about which Obama himself has said he is "not interested in running a car company".

It's completely unrelated to Communism in which the workers themselves (theoretically) own the means of production. All production - across all industries.

OK. So we know that much of America is easily led (whether by right or left).

Say Exxon gets fired up about an issue. A very small percentage of their profits from the last year could buy a hell of a lot of advertising/programs to sway the masses, seems to me.

Not sure I think that's a good idea. But corporatism does appear to be the wave we're riding.

5-4 decision released today siding with Citizen's United. It seems as if there is now no limit on corporate or union direct expenditures on candidates.

It's always amusing to me how "liberal" and "conservative" justices can hold either very narrow, or very broad views about the scope of constitutional rights depending on what they think about the underlying litigants and their causes.

Well, that'll make the next election exciting. Thank goodness I have a TIVO.

heh. once again...we need to get the money OUT of politics, not more money back into it

Agreed, they just have to try to figure out how to get around that pesky Constitution.

i know that's supposed to be sarcasm.

but the easy answer is that the Constitution is a living document, subject to amendment, etc. And it was written at a time when there was no inkling of the amount of money corporations would have available.

Frankly I think the "Founding Fathers" would be shocked if they could see us now, still trying to live in lockstep with something that they wrote over 200 years ago. They'd probably be first in line to tear it up and write another one, or amend the hell out of it.

They would probably be shocked at the size of the government more so.

/ducks

Stevens himself makes a good argument in his dissent that there was no actual "ban", seeing as corporations and unions can and have formed PACs.

It's a good argument. Just for discussion sake, here's the majority opinion response to that:
....

Even if a PAC could somehow allow a corporation to speak—and it does not—the option to form PACs does not alleviate the First Amendment problems with §441b. PACs are burdensome alternatives; they are expensive to administer and subject to extensive regulations. For example, every PAC must appoint a treasurer, forward donations to the treasurer promptly, keep detailed records of the identities of the persons making donations, preserve receipts for three years, and file an organization statement and report changes to this information within 10 days.See id., at 330–332 (quoting MCFL, 479 U. S., at 253– 254).

And that is just the beginning. PACs must file detailed monthly reports with the FEC, which are due at different times depending on the type of election that is about to occur:

“‘These reports must contain information regarding the amount of cash on hand; the total amount of re-ceipts, detailed by 10 different categories; the identification of each political committee and candidate’s authorized or affiliated committee making contributions, and any persons making loans, providing rebates, re-funds, dividends, or interest or any other offset to op-erating expenditures in an aggregate amount over $200; the total amount of all disbursements, detailed by 12 different categories; the names of all authorized or affiliated committees to whom expenditures aggregating over $200 have been made; persons to whom loan repayments or refunds have been made; the total sum of all contributions, operating expenses, outstanding debts and obligations, and the settlement terms of the retirement of any debt or obligation.’” 540 U. S., at 331–332 (quoting MCFL, supra, at 253– 254).

PACs have to comply with these regulations just to speak. This might explain why fewer than 2,000 of the millions of corporations in this country have PACs.

PACs, furthermore, must exist before they can speak. Given the onerous restrictions, a corporation may not be able to establish a PAC in time to make its views known regarding candidates and issues in a current campaign.

Section 441b’s prohibition on corporate independent expenditures is thus a ban on speech. As a “restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend onpolitical communication during a campaign,” that statute “necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached.” Buck-ley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 19 (1976) (per curiam). Were the Court to uphold these restrictions, the Government could repress speech by silencing certain voices at any of the various points in the speech process. See McConnell, supra, at 251 (opinion of SCALIA, J.) (Government couldrepress speech by “attacking all levels of the production
and dissemination of ideas,” for “effective public communication requires the speaker to make use of the services of others”).

If §441b applied to individuals, no one would believe that it is merely a time, place, or manner restriction on speech. Its purpose and effect are to silence entities whose voices the Government deems to be suspect.

I agree that we should be trying to get money out of politics--I don't think it's particularly healthy for good government.

But, I view the Constitution as more important to uphold than my own thoughts on the matter. We treat corporate entities as persons under the law. The first amendment gives us the right to free speech. Being unable to express your message on the airwaves (regulated by government) seems to be unworkable with the right to free speech. It's not like we're talking about giving money to a candidate, which seems to be more than just the ability to speak. We're talking about the ability for a corporation to advocate their own politics.

So why not amend the Constitution to not treat corporate entities as persons?

I'm still trying to figure out where teh constitution says corporations HAVE rights at all? They are not citizens in and of themselves, they are creations, fronts....figureheads...nothing but names with huge amounts of money behind them.

As a shareholder there are more than enough avenues for you to put your money to use for your candidate or against another one without resorting to multiplying any one groups speaking power by magnitudes of 10 just because they bought a $5 share in subcutaneous alcohol delivery systems LLC.

Corporations do not have free speech, corporations are regulated entities, not free citizens.

This ruling is going to fuck this country hard.

Way to go SCotUS

Or undo some of the amendments it already has.

I'm not even going to go there because we all know where that would end up. :popcorn:

Just pointin' out the possibilities, that's all.

I think they'd be even more shocked at how society has changed -- good & bad -- far more than they would at the lifespan of the document.

See Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Tom Logan (Nov. 12, 1816), in 12 The Works of Thomas Jefferson 42, 44 (P. Ford ed. 1905) ("I hope we shall . . . crush in [its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country").

:lol: well which amendments would you like to see repealed? 4? 5? 6? 13? 15? 19?

Here though, the corporations aren't defying the laws of the country, they're asking that Congress be bound by the 1st amendment in enacting laws

I don't like it either, but I'm sure Jefferson would be even more surprised that the 4th amendment applies to foreign terrorists who have never set foot in the U.S, or that there's a federal right to abortion.

The constitution is basically like the bible, it can be used to support or oppose almost anything. It's like this legal fiction standing in the way of the real debate.

The power is with the appellate courts. They decide how they want the laws to be (or not be), and then humor us with a "constitutional analysis"

Me? Or them? 'Cause the list is likely different in some cases.

I'd honestly be more likely to start with 16 and then go after 24 or 26 next.
And then I'd have to brush up considerably on what actually falls under 14 to see whether it would make the list.

I see what you're doing with that statement .... you're a multi-millionaire and hiding behind the English language admit it ;)

I meant you. I was genuinely curious.

So you're in favor of poll taxes? Poll taxes which were historically introduced after Reconstruction to restrict the ability of black people to vote? I see. I suppose that's not really surprising.

Income tax...I suppose that is the "popular" one, but without an income tax you raise a whole host of other issues as far as paying for the governmental services you do want (whatever those may be - I know you're not a libertarian, so there are SOME).

14th Amendement: defines citizenship, due process clause & due process rights, Equal Protection Clause.

I guess I wouldn't be surprised you'd be against those "liberal" types of things either.

16 then 24? abolish one tax and then allow another one?

He never said he made sense...

:lol:

That would be fine. I would be for or against all kinds of possible amendments, but once it's there, it has to be respected. Also, states could amend their corporate laws--I believe all consider corporations as persons, but if they do not then it could be an interesting case.

try reading 24...
It is not a tax, it makes it illegal to prohibit voting rights to people who dont pay appropriate taxes.

poll taxes...which were used during reconstruction and jim crow to disenfranchise poor blacks in the south.

so all of a sudden we're going back to a system where only rich people can vote? I know Jon would probably be in favor of that, but I think it's pretty sleezy.

We've already got it with folks who can afford lobbyists writing the laws and taking away your vote's power.

But I can certainly see making an argument that those who only take from society should not be allowed to control the folks who give them their handouts. That's a far cry from saying only the rich can vote.

This decision really disappoints me. I have real difficulty with the equation money = speech.

Perhaps we need an amendment allowing congress to legislate 'regulations for'/'restrictions on' campaign finance.

Damn the Activist Judges! Even the conservative ones.

Every single vote was based on political/personal beliefs about this subject, just like almost every post in this thread is based on political/personal beliefs, rather than an actual, honest, interpretation of the constitution/laws at issue.

I did too, but by limiting the ability to spend money, you limit their ability to spread their political views. How else can they do it without spending money?

companies shouldn't be spreading their political views. it essentially gives them 2x the "speech." they have employees...the employees have views. the employees can and should contribute to candidates. upper management can contribute to whatever candidates they feel will best help the company.

Exactly. A Company doesn't have political views at all. Its employees MAY, but what right do those employees have to have a bigger louder more expensive say in the political universe than joe smuck sitting at home? Just because the company has more money to throw around doesn't justify them having a larger more visible say in government at all.

Wrong. About as completely wrong as humanly possibly in fact.

I can see both sides of it. A company does have political views, and insofar as that company pays corporate taxes I suppose it has a right to have those views heard (I think a lot of companies don't pay anywhere close to what they should in corporate taxes, but that's another argument).

The problem is that there's too much money in politics anyways...I'm for 100% publicly funded campaigns (and sure they might not have as much money and might be smaller in scope, but I doubt very many would complain about that), and getting all the lobbyist money out of the pockets of the politicians. So if that's my stance then yeah, corporations shouldn't have a right to make their political voice heard any louder than you or I (who under my system wouldn't be donating to candidates anyways).

That way we'd get politicians who care about service instead of lining their own pockets, and perhaps we get a government that's actually more responsive to the populace.

At least that's the idea.

I'm gonna flip your comment out of sequence a little because what I'm getting at is easier to highlight that way.


Presumably however you aren't naive enough to believe that's how it would actually work.


The lobbyist money is a means to an end: getting re-elected. It isn't the reason they want to be re-elected in the first place. And where there's a demand, there will generally be a supply. Nothing about the lobby money, nor corporate money used for campaign purposes has anything to do with "caring about service", they'll just find another way to utilize the suddenly available dollars.

Shareholders buy into corporations...they are the owners. Shareholders pay money into the corporation make profits. Thus, the money they put into the corporation is money they no longer have for donating to campaigns. They have the right to either a) take back all of the money, or b) use some of the money they make to help make more money. Because corporations are so big, in many cases the board of directors hires managers to make many of these decisions. Corporations only have to answer to the shareholders--they don't represent you or me, they represent their interests.

Also, how is this much different than being a "Friend of Candidate", donating to their campaign, and having the campaign pay for its commercials. What about the ACLU? Why give their members "2x the speech"?

If you don't like a whole lot of money in politics, that's fine. I don't particularly like it much either. But, just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's not protected speech.

Sounds like you don't like unions advocating for things either.

i'm not saying that it's not protected speech currently. i think that's stilll debatable either way, but i'm not interested in that argument. i'm arguing that the laws should be changed so that it wouldn't be.

As a side note, I was reading a bit more about the case and discovered Citizen's United had a longer name originally. Citizen's United Not Timid.

Classy group to do a Hillary attack movie.

No, I don;t because the union is collecting money from a myriad of people not ALL of which hold the same precise beliefs. The union using its general funds to back any single candidate is not promoting the beliefs of its entire membership and is actively working against some of them, thereby taking away those persons rights to have the unions bigger stronger voice support THEIR candidate.

A Company is a THING jon, it is not a person, it is not a group of people, it is an inanimate and in most cases IMAGINARY creation of human beings. A single citizen of this nation can have a political view, many such human beings can sometimes even have the SAME political view.

A Company cannot.

A Company has no place putting its funds into politicians pockets.

People certainly can. Allowing a company to use its much larger deeper purses to promote the political agenda of a few people who are employed at the company is wrong. It artificially inflates those few peoples voices in the discussion while at the same time dissallowing the views of anyone employed there who disagrees with that view. It is in and of itself the antithesis of Free Speech.

Every single person/citizen in this country has the right and I daresay the responsibility to promote their political beliefs. Equally, 1 voice for 1 person. The campaign laws should support this instead of allowing politicians to become little more than bought and stuffed puppets with the board of directors hands stuck up their ass.

Render, I'm not even sure there's anything in your post that was actually correct once you get past part of the first sentence.

But rave all you want, we're kind of used to it around here.

If you disagree thats fine, doesn't make me wrong, just makes me 1 less person in agreement.

If you believe a company or corporation IS in fact a living breathing person with the right to sway politics, then support your opinion. Otherwise you're sort of blowing smoke in the air and wasting our time.

This isn't about what the laws state right now, this is about the reality that a company or corporation is not a REAL PERSON and is nothing more than a paperwork representation of a group of people who all get paid from the same bank account. It is in fact an IMAGINARY CREATION of one or more people to represent their business. Businesses aren't citizens, businesses cannot vote. WHy then should they be allowed to pour billions of dollars into politicians pockets?

Well, I would argue that a corporation isn't advocating the political views of its employees at all. It is advocating the believes that will make the shareholders of the corporation more money. This decision does not allow corporations to "line the pockets of politicians." It allows the corporations to spend money advocating for a candidate, presumably one that it feels would give it the best chance to make more money for its owners. If it picked one that was not going to give it a better chance to make money then either a) they made a misguided decision on who to support, or b) the directors/managers ought to be fired because they are spending the shareholders' money improperly and could find themselves to be the defendants in a shareholder derivative action.

I just got back into the country a couple of days ago but saw this decision. The person I talked to in Colombia about it couldn't understand how the decision even makes sense in the least. That made two of us. I'm strongly with Render on this- a company should not have these rights and I think it opens up many very bad possibilities.

I made my points much earlier in the thread and I still don't understand how people in corporations should essentially get double rights to free speech. The individuals who make up a corporation are not having their free speech impinged so I don't see how they should get an opportunity to doubly extend those dollars both as an individual *and* as a corporation. Then again, I believe in one person/one vote, not one dollar/one vote.

I also see a extreme possibility for conflicts of interest- "You know, Bob, our corporation supports candidate X but I see in the tax filings for his opponent, candidate Y, that you supported him. I think it's time for your yearly review".

It's pretty clear that no only do we have 5 Supreme Court justices who will strongly side with big business. But also that those beliefs also extend to that while they don't support government being big, they're perfectly ok with businesses being big.

Government is either going to be dominated by business or dominate business, in a lot of people's minds. It seems like it's an either/or option- you have to either have big business or big government (which regulates businesses). The cognitive dissonance to me is that a lot of the supporters of smaller government are perfectly ok with unfettered size and power for business, which essentially will just mean that business will function as the government. So, in short, they rightfully decry a tyrannical government but are perfectly ok with being ruled by a tyrannical corporation.

SI

As though that doesn't exist now?

Hell, I can tell you the contribution status of most people I've had major dealings with over at least the last decade and I think it's fair to say that I'm not exactly a big spender nor a big corporation.

Definitely something that happens now, I had to take a Business Ethics course a while back and a good portion of it was about troubles I believe Wal-Mart was having with allegedly doing just that with votes. It's a pretty grey area.

Now as to this thread, am I the only one who originally thought this was about a soccer match?

Nope, you're not alone.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen and Sen. Chuck Schumer are planning to introduce legislation in both chambers next week to blunt the effect of the Citizens United case.

According to the summary, obtained by The Washington Post, the legislation would require corporate chief executives or group leaders to publicly attach their names to ads, much like political candidates are required to do. It would also mandate disclosure of major donors whose money is used for "campaign-related activity."

The latter measure would require powerful trade groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for the first time to identify the companies that fund its political-related spending.

The measure would also tighten political restrictions on foreign-based corporations, which would be defined as any company that has 20 percent foreign voting shares, a majority of foreign directors or a foreign national leading U.S. operations. If enacted into law, that provision could affect a significant number of familiar companies, including Budweiser, T-Mobile and Research in Motion.

Other provisions would mandate public disclosure of political spending and would bar companies that receive federal contracts worth more than $50,000 from spending money to influence federal elections, the summary says.



American actually are pretty angry, and still hate the Citizens United decision. Really hate it. You don't see 79% majorities on much these days.

I'm pretty happy with pretty much all of the bill as stated there.

SI