Citizens Reconsidered II

If you are rich, particularly if you have massive corporate or union funds at your disposal to purchase election campaigns to make sure that your special interests dominate your selfish desires over any semblance of common sense or what actually might be good for society as a whole, Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission is the best U.S. Supreme Court decision in years. And as every election since the ruling was issued in 2010 has reflected, federal laws aimed at curbing letting political campaigns profoundly favoring “the highest bidder” were crushed under a misguided application of the free speech sections of the First Amendment beyond individual people to organizations and structures, which have vastly greater resources. “If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech,” said the court.

The ruling didn’t impact rules relating to direct political contributions to candidates, but simply addressed the rights of organizations to use their wealth to buy the marketing necessary to support “issue” campaigns not directly controlled by the candidates themselves (even if the issues were supporting a particular candidate). The court also seems to have overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and partially overruled McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003). The court did leave the door open to allow requiring disclosure of the underlying contributors to what has become known as Super PACS, but disclosure was not the issue at bar. The court also addressed the government’s case that allowing such expenditures and treating companies and organizations as if they were individual people, fomenting buying elections and enabling corruption or at least the appearance of corruption, believing that these results were not something that they expected as a result of their ruling. How totally and utterly wrong they were.

With seemingly bigger Supreme Court issues in the news – from the ruling on Arizona’s immigration laws to consideration of President Obama’s healthcare legislation – many may have missed the news that the Supreme Court came back to the issues decided in Citizens United, this time under the guise of examining a Montana statute, which applied anticorruption justification to limiting such political spending by organizations and was upheld by the Montana Supreme Court on that ground.

The case pitted American Tradition Partnership, Inc. vs. Steve Bullock, Attorney General of Montana. “In Montana, the State Supreme Court had ruled that the state’s distinctive history and characteristics warranted a departure from the principles announced in Citizens United… Chief Justice Mike McGrath of the Montana Supreme Court, writing for the majority in its 5-to-2 ruling, stressed that the state’s experience of having its political system corrupted by corporate interests early in the 20th century justified the ruling.” New York Times, June 25^th. With a population of only about one million, the cost of buying Montana votes with a massive Super PAC campaign is pretty cheap. Yet Montana elects the same number of U.S. Senators – two – as does California with thirty seven times as many people.

But whether from hubris or some misguided belief that the horribles they said would not happen – and really did happen – really didn’t, the court stayed the course. Having a clear opportunity to limit or even reverse a truly horrible decision, the court just could not bring itself to do the right thing: “In the 5-to-4 ruling on [June 25^th], the court summarily reversed a decision of the Montana Supreme Court that had upheld a state law limiting independent political spending by corporations. That decision, the United States Supreme Court said, was flatly at odds with Citizens United, which said the First Amendment allows corporations and unions to spend as much as they like to support or oppose political candidates.

“‘The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law,’ the opinion said. ‘There can be no serious doubt that it does.’ Montana’s arguments, the opinion continued, ‘either were already rejected in Citizens United, or fail to meaningfully distinguish that case.’

“The four members of the court’s liberal wing dissented in an opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who said that Citizens United itself had been a mistake… ‘Even if I were to accept Citizens United,’ Justice Breyer continued, ‘this court’s legal conclusion should not bar the Montana Supreme Court’s finding, made on the record before it, that independent expenditures by corporations did in fact lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption in Montana. Given the history and political landscape in Montana, that court concluded that the state had a compelling interest in limiting independent expenditures by corporations.’” NY Times. Big business with vast resources won again as America moved one giant step closer to an oligarchy of elite interests and away from the notion of a level playing field inherent in a bona fide democracy.

I’m Peter Dekom, and perhaps we should end both lingering political hypocrisy and the budget deficit by simply putting federal elected offices to open and competitive bidding; let the richest candidate or the candidate with the richest friends win!