I think these disadvantages highlight the underlying issues with many of these campaigns for “reform.” Many a great political campaign have been based on limiting lobbyists and “unethical” influence on government. The root issue is that the government has too much power. If we reduce the power of the government to something closer to what is envisioned in the constitution, then superficial reforms to limit unethical influences on the government are also limited.

I don’t really like the idea of foreign influence on our government, but if we reduced the size and scope of government power, then we would be able to minimize foreign influence all while guaranteeing our freedoms… and I am one that believes a human life is a human life, regardless of citizenship lottery. Corporate personhood has its issues, but corporations serve the interest of individuals that do have true personhood; their liability should be limited because they should not be held personally liable for law breaking of employees that they are many times removed.

1) Relevance to Consumerism Commentary

I think it is relevant. Elections mean significant changes to the economy, and money drives elections. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it is. This has an indirect effect on how money flows toward you, and a direct effect on how your money impacts elections.

My prediction is that with this new deregulation, personal contributions to any given state or federal campaign will amount to maybe 1% of the total money spent on a candidate or issue. Again, I’m just guessing. We won’t know until after November. But if I’m right, it means our representatives will have no good reason to listen to their constituents, because their constituents will not be relevant to their re-election process.

If it helps, I don’t have plans to write more about public policy vs. finances, but this seemed too important not to write about. (And Flexo already wrote about the other huge story of the day.)

2) Donations usually go to incumbents

So far I haven’t found much research to back that up, but I’ll keep looking.

But aside from that, the SCOTUS ruling doesn’t affect donations, just other kinds of spending. Mostly, I suspect, television ads. Really expensive ones. You know those “Get a Mac” ads? Compare that with the last time you saw an ad for a pro-union position. Corporations are excellent at producing persuasive ads. Nobody else has the kind of money, knowledge and resources that they do to try and sell the people on something.

3) Corporate Personhood

The expanded free speech granted by this ruling is not at the core of my disagreement. It’s because it assumes that corporations have similar rights as individuals, but fewer responsibilities than individuals. I understand and accept that it’s been a long-standing precedent in this country, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with it. It just means I have a long road ahead of me.

In short, a corporation doesn’t have a brain of its own, so it is incapable of forming opinions. Therefore, free speech doesn’t apply.

The people that work for that corporation, on the other hand, I want them to have as much free speech as they can handle. But you’re never going to find a situation where every employee of a large corporation agrees with the decision the CEO makes to spend the company’s money on a political ad. If that happened, you’d refer to them as The Borg.

4) The Constitutional Amendment

That may not be the best way to fix what I think is the problem. I’ve also signed up to learn more about the Fair Elections Now Act. I’m casting a wide net for possible solutions.

As for those who say “shut up about politics,” this is far too important to worry about offending anyone. Full speed ahead Smithee!

-Erica

I like this schpiel lol

Given how prominent support of politics is already in the corporate scene (in the form of MSNBC and Fox News) it’s not like this is some new problem we just ran into, it’s only an extension of what exists.

Rant aside, let’s just take a small section of the post…

“But corporations, because they are almost always motivated only by profit, will want Republicans to win more than they want Democrats to win, because Republicans tend to vote to protect profits more than anything else. And corporations will always have more to spend on candidates than individuals will.

I acknowledge that some corporations, while incapable of having their own ethics, are run by ethically-minded people. Not all of them want to see America continue its dependence on foreign oil, High Fructose Corn Syrup, ammonia-laced beef and unnecessary medical tests.”

Including a disclaimer about assumptions is not permission to then freely assume whatever you feel supports your opinion. Hell, for someone arguing against the corporation being labeled a person, you sure write like they already are. You write that they feel, are motivated, have desires… I’m not sure what the issue is with the Supreme Court making it official, it appears you already believe it. Either they simply agree with you, or you really don’t know much at all about what you’re writing.

Given your multiple statements on policy issues, you don’t sound anything like an independent, which to me is someone who works to bring sides together and prefers compromise, even if some parts aren’t in line with his/her own policy beliefs. The old “I’m an independent, always have been…” is all too often thrown in to lend credibility where none exists.

There’s this little bonus: “…general idea that individuals fending for themselves is more American than people coming together to help each other out.”

PEOPLE coming together to help each other out is great… Government FORCING people to come together through taxation, policy, and programs is not what I would call American.

The whole post reads like a MoveOn e-mail rant… here’s another goodie: “But I feel confident that if Shell could spend a billion dollars to elect a candidate that would help them realize $4 billion in profit, they would.”

If you have any fact that leads to that conclusion, by all means share, because at least there would be a shred of reasoning as to why you feel this way. Did you work for Shell? Have you examined their political contributions and subsequent profits from policy decisions? Do you have a friend on the Board?

Your statement sounds a lot like your political leanings just help you assume that confidence, I’d be welcome to hear if it’s otherwise.

Hope I can come back tomorrow and read more about finances.

http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission

I honestly don’t think this decision is going to have as much effect as you might think. if you look at corporate donations, as G mentions above, you’ll see that both Democrats and Republicans get donations, and usually the party in power – incumbents – get more because the corporations want to be on the good side of whoever is in office. Will this mean that corporations give more during the election season? possibly. But I don’t seeing it having an appreciable affect on the elections themselves. People can think for themselves, and both parties are going to have groups putting out advertising/documentaries/etc that support their position.

But I think that an amendment declaring corporations not to be people is way off base. First, they’re not people. That’s why they don’t vote. Second, the treatment of a corporation as separate from its investors (that is, its treatment as its own entity) is one of the most fundamental drivers of economic growth. If every investor were liable for the debts of a business, who would invest?

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens may have had his tongue in his cheek, or perhaps wanted merely to taunt the majority, when he wrote in Thursday’s opinion on the role of corporations in national politics: “Under the majority’s view, I suppose it may be a First Amendment problem that corporations are not permitted to vote, given that voting is, among other things, a form of speech.

The majority didn’t say anything like that. just wanted to point that out.

I believe you are mistaken on your reasoning regarding the supreme court issue.

The supreme court issue deals only with express advocacy and electioneering communications, not with direct contributions to candidates (which are STILL BANNED). Before, Corporations could not directly use money from their treasuries on ads urging the election or defeat of a federal candidate (express advocacy). They were limited to making donations to Political Action Committees (PACs), and the max contribution from the Corporations (as well as employees and family of employees) was $5,000. Furthermore, they could fund ads through the PAC that mentioned the candidate, but those types of ads were banned 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election (electioneering communication). In addition, even though typical corporations were barred from these types of communications, media companies (radio, tv, and newspapers) were not.

In essence, what the previous law had held was that in certain circumstances, government could restrict freedom of speech. The supreme court, wisely in my opinion, held that this was in direct violation of the first amendment. It correctly stated that freedom of press is not “more applicable” to media companies, and with the ubiquity of ways to publish nowadays, the distinct line between what “press” meant in the 18th century and now in the 21st century is very different.

“Two days ago, the Shell Corporation would’ve been unable to produce and distribute a feature-length movie explaining that oil is the obvious and only logical way to fuel your car, and therefore you should vote for Sarah Palin.”

Your statement is mostly true here. Two days ago, Shell could have been able to produce that movie as long as it didn’t endorse or discredit a candidate. Think about “An Inconvienent Truth”, a great movie about the global warming issue, would’ve been banned from distribution if Al Gore said at the end: “Vote for Candidate X.” That’s all it would’ve taken (yes this really was the government’s argument). T. Boone Pickens’ “Pickens Plan” ads would’ve been banned if he had tried to endorse a candidate (or urge the defeat of a candidate).

“The Supreme Court didn’t have to make such a large ruling. They specifically asked to review the long-standing precedent while in the middle of a much smaller case. Conservative opinion holds a majority in the Supreme Court at the moment.”

While it is true that 6 of 9 justices were appointed by republican presidents, Stevens and Kennedy tend to be centrist on most issues, shifting the balance to the majority on practically any case before them. In this case, Kennedy went with the majority while Stevens (Ford’s appointee) went with the minority.

“In 2008, Barack Obama was able to raise more than John McCain by switching from federally-supplied election funds to private sources. The Obama campaign raised a previously-unheard-of amount through “micro-donations”, such as the $160 I donated over the course of three or four months.
But corporations, because they are almost always motivated only by profit, will want Republicans to win more than they want Democrats to win, because Republicans tend to vote to protect profits more than anything else. And corporations will always have more to spend on candidates than individuals will.”

I think you imply that if the campaign were held today that Obama (in a vacuum) would raise less money than John McCain. As I pointed out, this ruling has NOTHING to do with donations directly to campaigns as they are still banned. Your opinion on “profit=republican” is yours to have, I personally disagree, but remember this law affects labor unions as well, which are very well funded, wield massive amounts of soft power, and tend to back democratic candidates.

“Any [Foreign] corporation operating in the U.S. is equally unrestricted.”

In my opinion I think you over-estimate the importance U.S. elections have on foreign based companies. Again, they are STILL BANNED from directly contributing to campaigns.

“Yes, this recent ruling also allows unions and other advocacy groups to spend as much as they want in a given election. But who has more to spend, the American Federation of Teachers, or Microsoft? There’s no contest between unions and corporations.”

That statement isn’t necessarily true. (http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/08/liberal-political-action-commi.html) (sorry, I’m web illiterate).

In the end, America stops being America when it starts banning books, which is exactly what this law had previously allowed. This is the reason SCOTUS struck down this law.

There are problems as well with small donations from private sources. President Obama never released his donor list. We have no idea how much of this money was from foreign sources or multiple donations from a single individual. This is not regulated. McCain-Feingold didn’t end political corruption – it just moved it into the shadows and forced people to get creative. Hence entities like Moveon.org or the infamous Swiftboaters in the 2004 campaign.

At first I had the same feeling on this as you, I feared that the courts totally sold out our political process( it was only mostly sold before). But then I thought that this could be a “tipping point”. What if we citizens get so fed up with added corporate messages that it backfires on them. Like a song that gets played too much on the radio, you like it at fist but after a while you get sick of it.

Perhaps the added money will be good for the newspapers and other media and they can be the public’s watchdogs, fact-checking all the new ads for us.

Of course the cynic in me thinks that the media is ruled by the same advertising $ that the corps will be using to try buy their political favors with. If that’s the case, what a bummer.