By Ron Lora
Note: To read all Ron Lora columns click here.
In yet another 5-4 decision the U.S. Supreme Court two weeks ago defined itself as an activist court in striking down aspects of current campaign-finance laws, particularly restrictions on corporate-financed political ads.
The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling threw out portions of what many hoped was settled law that prohibited companies and labor unions from using their own money to favor or oppose individual candidates by name.
The Court's majority argued that the First Amendment right to free speech was at stake, which large corporations should enjoy even as individual citizens do.
It also raised fears of weakening a century-old law. After it had become obvious that the Trusts [huge corporations operating monopolistically] paid for the votes of many U.S. senators, Republican president Theodore Roosevelt called for an end to corporate financing of political campaigns. He won a partial victory in 1907 with the passage of the Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to political campaigns.
Roosevelt operated in concert with the views of one of the greatest of all chief justices, John Marshall, who long before had argued that a corporation is an "artificial being, invisible, and intangible" - in other words, a "legal fiction" created by judges, something very different from the unalienable rights that individual citizens enjoy.
Corporations exist at the pleasure of ruling powers, whereas humans are born naturally, without benefit of signing documents. An individual doesn't need a state's permission to exist; corporations do. Corporations cannot be elected to political office; but people may.
Corporations don't vote; but citizens do. Corporations are not actual members of "We the People" for whom our Constitution was written. Corporations do not have consciences and feelings; but people do. Corporations are business entities whose objective is to make money.
These are crucial distinctions. Courts may choose to overlook them, but when they do, we risk the conversion of "We the People" into "We the Corporations."
For the Court ruling will enlarge the already overweening power of lobbyists in Washington and in state capitals. For example, the US Chamber of Commerce now promises to fund the "largest, most aggressive" election-season campaign in its history, and to single out for retribution those candidates who fail to agree with the Chamber's line.
Think of the following hypothetical closed-door conversation between a corporate lobbyist and a senator: "Are you really going to support the proposed environmental regulation? If so, prepare to be bombarded with $3 million of spiteful ads against you in the next campaign."
Other possibilities are no better. Unless legislation is passed to counter a new open season of campaign financing, US subsidiaries of foreign-owned firms may well fund ads in our domestic political campaigns. Unthinkable, it would seem. Yet it could happen.
From the common person's point of view, the problem has not been the dearth of corporate and union money in politics; rather, it's been corporate dollars flooding into Washington and, indirectly, into political campaigns.
The most immediate thing that can be done is for congress to require corporate ads to indicate who its sponsors are, as candidates themselves must do. If, for example, Big Health Care Insurance Company wishes to spend millions on ads to defeat Senator Harry Reid, its president or CEO should publically announce that he or she has approved. It wouldn't eliminate the big dollars, unfortunately, but at least it would clarify matters for voters.
If this is insufficient, a constitutional amendment may be required, stating that corporations and unions are not "persons" with a right to finance political ads in support of or against individual candidates (read: are not permitted to buy elections).
The bottom line is this: the amassed might of corporate money in politics is not democracy's friend; it's an enemy.
