The Legacy of Citizens United

When the Supreme Court issued its now infamous Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission in 2010, we all knew that this would be a seminal case, one that so many believed passionately would distort the American election process big time. By according the individual right of free expression to business and non-profit organizations, the Court stepped into the mire and ruled that no spending or contribution caps could be placed on political ads from these entities as long as their political expressions and campaigns were not controlled by a candidate.

All hell broke loose as new Super-PACs and PACs were immediately formed in record numbers, as campaign their related war chests exploded with contributions, most with anonymous donors and most with ultra-right wing messages.

Two years later, ignoring the Montana Supreme Court’s attempt to prevent undue influence in what was and is a tiny political market (population around 1 million) that could easily and inexpensively be saturated with political ads, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed its horrendous decision in Citizens United.

The Washington Post, June 25, 2012, reported at the time: “The Supreme Court has struck down a Montana ban on corporate political money, ruling 5 to 4 that the controversial 2010 Citizens United ruling applies to state and local elections.

“The court broke in American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock along the same lines as in the original Citizens United case, when the court ruled that corporate money is speech and thus corporations can spend unlimited amounts on elections.

“‘The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law,’ the majority wrote. ‘There can be no serious doubt that it does.’… No arguments were heard; it was a summary reversal.” The Russian influence, probably illegal under existing law, was just one tiny drop in the bucket of extremist groups making their mark in using hard dollars to sway voters to extremist positions.

The accelerating of polarization in the United States, a country where our political parties simply have stopped communicating and trying to find bi-partisan compromises to seminal legislation, is most certainly a direct and immediate result of what may be one of the Supreme Courts worst decisions in its history. Many thought this trend towards conservative thought would be a particular boon to Republican Party; who would have predicted that this ruling would actually infect the GOP with an ailment from which it is unlikely to recover?

“Changes in campaign finance laws have acted in tandem with increasingly independent and influential conservative media outlets to undermine the Republican establishment. The most important of these changes came out of the 2010 Citizens United decision and related court rulings that opened the door to unlimited donations to super PACs, which effectively eliminated the near stranglehold vested Republican interests had on the flow of political money.

“This becomes glaringly apparent in a comparison of the pattern of fund-raising in 2008, the last election before the Citizens United decision, to the pattern in 2016. In the 2008 election, the three major Republican campaign committees raised a total of $657.6 million, six times the $111.9 million spent by nonparty conservative organizations.

“By 2016, however, the amount raised by the three Republican committees stagnated at $652.4 million, while the cash raised by conservative groups grew sevenfold to $810.4 million… In practical terms, the creation of a new and massive source of campaign support freed candidates to defy the establishment. This is just what the Tea Party did in 2010 and 2014.

“There is considerable disagreement over whether deregulated campaign finance and the mobilization of the angriest segment of the Republican electorate will inflict permanent damage on the Republican establishment.

“Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote me by email. ‘The establishment, such as it is, still exists, but its influence has been permanently weakened by changes in the media,’ not just by conservative media, but by social media that ‘enables candidates to reach their respective bases in an inexpensive way. Endorsements and money mean less and less.’

“Ideological media outlets on both the left and right, Tanner argues ‘carry more weight than ever before,’ displacing establishment influence over candidate selection, because both sides are now more dependent on mobilizing base voters than in persuading the ever-smaller faction of uncommitted voters.” Thomas Edsall (weekly columnist, specializing in politics, demographics and inequality) writing for the April 26^th New York Times.

The ramifications of that expanding and persistent polarization, the demise of traditional and moderate Republicans, may end someday, but will the nation itself survive the damage that has already ripped this country apart… into fervent factions with irreconcilable differences? But to end this exceptional disharmony, first we need to find a path to reverse or at least nullify these horrific Supreme Court decisions.

I’m Peter Dekom, and have we have already sown the seeds of our own destruction?