Supreme Court overturns ban on direct corporate spending on elections
 

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:sad:

This is the greatest loss on the front of responsible campaign finance in the history of the United States. Corporations are now free, should they choose, to directly finance their own campaigns for any candidate they so choose, meaning they now arguably have more control over who does or does not get elected than any individual. To paraphrase a famous quote, if you begin to feel an intense and crushing feeling of social and political terror at the concept, don't be alarmed; that indicates only that you're still sane.

Unbelievable....

I suppose in theory I should agree as I don't think the govt should be telling us how we can spend our money but I simply can't agree with this. We need big money out of our election process plain and simple, if that makes me a hypocrite then I just don't care.

Honestly with all the other infringements against our rights going on right now THIS winds up in front of the court and THIS gets overturned? Sometimes its hard to have any faith in my govt, it really is.

Unbelievable.

As a citizen of a country whose political contributions/donations cannot be financed by corporations, trade unions, associations and groups, and whose individual citizens are greatly limited in how much they can contribute, all I have to say is this: holy shit.

The power of influence has just gotten a shitload more powerful. Just when I thought the political process in the U.S. was circus-like enough....

i've spent the past hour or so trying to figure out what comes after plutocracy. oligarchy is contained within plutocracy...but what's next? back in the day it was Revolution.

what's astonishing to me about this is...well everything. i had a bad bad feeling when i read about this case being accepted. folk at the time were allowing themselves to speculate about this becoming a legal referendum on the notion of corporate personhood. and i suppose in a way it is, just not as those folk had expected or hoped.

i would hope that there is a legislative response to this, some move to draft new law that redefines the game and removes some of the overwhelming power that the supreme court just handed the corporate oligarchy (as if they did not already have enough power in the context of the fading american empire)...

criminy...

The revolutionary types are under the spell of laissez-faire capitalism, roach. The NRA and Tea Party folks generally support the movement of power from the government to the market. I wouldn't necessarily say they'd call this a win, but their corporate masters might. They'd sooner turn their revolutionary impulses on the government which has effectively just been neutered.

Folks like you and me aren't necessarily built for revolution.

President Obama posted this response on the White House website:
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...but that seems like a bit of a joke considering the Democrats' lack of party unity as of late. Add to that the fact that anyone that wants to be reelected would be writing their own pink slip if they were to stand against corporate influence, and we've got a recipe for stagnation. A few Democrats will speak up, the Kuciniches and Graysons, but otherwise it will be foot dragging and apologism and blue-doggery.

This is going to get a lot worse before there's even hope of it getting better.

At least this puts to rest the whole notion that Kennedy et al are "strict constructionists." And why doesn't it surprise me that other "strict constructionists" are not up in arms about this?

A. Because constructionism is pretense for libertarianism and libertarianism is pretense for market worship.

Very simple solution. Find candidates that refuse the money and will work on a political finance amendment to end all this.

Or sit there and complain that this just basically put the nail in our coffin and elections truly won't matter because now everything is out in the open. Before they had to hide the money, now they'll just flaunt it.

An amendment is the ONLY way to truly get political finance reform.

So the individual citizens officially no longer count. Why even show up to the polling booth anymore?

Corporations still cannot give money directly to federal political campaigns. What they can do is spend as much money as they want on political ads. That's the issue here. And the argument is that this is a right protected by the 1st Amendment. I don't know if there is a simple solution here.

The biggest obstacle here is that it is a first amendment issue, essentially the decision says that the govt has no right to tell a corporation how they can and can't spend their money. In theory I agree, to do otherwise is a gross violation of the first. Aside from a constitutional amendment outlining the funding of elections (which would still theoretically violate the first) I don't really think there is any recourse here.

Its just a real shame that big oil (or any crop or group) can now spend billions of dollars on favorable advertisements for the candidate they like best while the opponent probably won't come remotely close to matching those funds. Unless of course they whore themselves out to another corporation by taking up their cause to get matching funds. Whats a candidates real concern going to be now? The average American gets overlooked enough in the election process as it is this is only going to make it a million times worse. The whole situation makes me sick.

Debate 2012: Barack Obama takes the stage with a Toyaota Prius logo across the back of his jacket and a tie reading Microsoft, Sara Palin trots out on stage with Shell written across the back of her skirt and a huge button reading McDonalds "I'm loving it". In the end what was said really doesn't matter as all anybody cares about is getting enough time on camera to meet the contractual obligations of their ads. Sure its an exaggeration but after this ruling whats the difference?

Your 2012 scenario can't happen, as I read things - there is still a ban on directly funding a candidate.

What could happen is all the ad slots in the debate going to McDonalds and them using them to say "Wasn't Palin great there? We're loving her".

In the UK, I don't know if it's law or convention, but companies do not directly advertise for or against politicians, but they are allowed to give money to parties for their own use.

Personally, I'd like to see a rule that says in effect "only an entity which can vote is allowed to give money to or spend money on influencing the political process". Democracy is about the voter expressing their opinions, so lets make the funding of democracy relate only to the contributions of voters.

Yeah thats how I understand it too Daniel, although with this ruling they might as well let candidates do it because in the end its kind of the same in my opinion.

I absolutely love your solution and I think that would actually be a great way to handle it, if your legally allowed to vote in the US you can contribute if not then you can't spend a dime, I like that. if only the courts saw it that way huh?

After my last post I got thinking about the issue a bit and I'm wondering how exactly is a "corporation" protected by the constitution anyway? Not allowing an individual to contribute would be a violation of his rights but how can intangible entity be guaranteed the same constitutional rights as a single person? I'd love to here the legal reasoning behind it because honestly I really don't understand it.

There are really a very few definitions of myself that I find acceptable. Being a "person." is one of them. I must say, I feel downright diminished by this ruling. To even consider a corporate entity might somehow be construed as a "person" diminishes us all in a significant way, I think.

But guys, Newt Gingrich said that this would be a boon to middle class candidates!!!! BOON!!!!! MIDDLE CLASSS!!!!!! Frankly, that's all I need to know.

---------- Post added at 09:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:20 AM ----------

Though to be fair, the US political system is pretty corrupt as is. I'm not sure this will do anything but make the corruption more overt.

New Jersey's governor just signed a law that severely limits the amount of money that NJ unions can donate to political campaigns. Where is the Republican outrage over this egregious trampling of First Amendment Rights?

Collectivism strikes again. Funny how I don't see anybody bitching about the Unions suddenly having their advertising hands untied by this same decision; sauce for the goose but none for the gander, eh?

Equally funny how those of us who have repeatedly called for an end to Corporate Personhood from a Rightist perspective (because only individual human beings have Rights, including free speech and political agency) are now being cast as cheerleaders for this insane decision.

Only when dealing with the Collectivist Left, in my observation, can vociferous support for the destruction of a thing (Corporate Personhood) be turned 180 degrees and absorbed, processed, and regurgitated as support -for- that thing. "You want to eliminate C.P. but you're an evil uncaring moronic tea-bagging Right-winger, so you want to -keep- C.P. because that's what evil uncaring moronic tea-bagging Right-wingers want!" The Collectivist Right has its' own similar problems, but only the C.L. seems so eager and able to take someone's actual positions and turn them inside out and upside down for the sake of scoring rhetorical brownie points. Some of y'all might want to take a closer look at the TEA Party protest signs; discounting the ones going after Obama and his Care, the single biggest target of these people's anger is the banks and auto companies who were bailed out by Bush and then Obama. Woah! Wait! But that's impossible! Everyone knows right-wing teabaggers worship banks! Yeah, and left-wingers want to force all the White women to have abortions to make room for more niggers. The first bolded statement operates on the same level of intellectual bankruptcy and moronic prejudice as the second.

What in the blue hell are you going on about?

I think it was implied. At least in my case. Neither corporations nor unions are permitted to fund political campaigns in Canada, and that's the way it should be.

But it's easy to get caught up on the topic of corporate personhood in this issue. We don't consider union personhood as much, no.

This:

and this:

Market: The free and voluntary exchange of goods and services.

Market Distortion: Anything which impedes the free and voluntary exchange of goods and services.

Collectivism: The ridiculous notion that groups, not (or in addition to) individuals, have Rights.

Corporation: A group (ie a Collective), in this case commercial in nature, insanely recognised by the State as having Rights, these Rights being enforced by violence. This creates a Market Distortion (see above) by insulating the Corporation from Market forces such as boycott, strike, or simple sucky product that drives customers away.

Lots of folks on the Right want Corporations gone every bit as much as folks on the Left do. However, because much of the Left is incapable of or unwilling to accept this fact, (see above quotes or anything by Kieth Olbermann, Ed Schultz, et al ad nauseum) they simply either refuse to acknowledge it or assign to such positions a meaning and purpose which is their exact opposite. This "Peace" becomes "war," "freedom" becomes "slavery," etc etc.

If you insist on making it ideological, I found it odd, but predictable and certainly not funny, that it was the conservative members of the bench, the more "strict" constitutionalists, who believe the laws of the land should treat corporations as "people".

WE the people and corporations of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union...

No comment.

Doesn't treating corporations as people essentially "double up" on people... making corporations some kind of gargantuan doppelganger chimera?

yeah well let's see. i think there's enough that's at the least problematic about this decision to occupy us without allowing things to degenerate into some strange passive-aggressive contest over whose political position dislikes corporate personhood more. it's a no-win situation. is there a stick or something that dislike runs up that we could point to after the tide goes out and say: see, my dislike of corporate personhood went to 11'3" while yours was a mere 11'...

i like this older blog entry about the case, which was one of a bunch that i read in the fall which were uneasy that this court decided to take on the case:

Scholars and Rogues Campaign finance hearing may have ramifications for corporate personhood

corporations are people.
money is speech.

i dunno..i think this is one of those moments that conservatives seem to put on every once in a while that starts out being one thing but soon turns into a kind of accidental theater, something on the order of the surrounding and sealing off of independence hall after 9/11/2001 in the name of protecting what it stood for. this is another.

Wait, so this entire rant is because people here have not expressed as much outrage at unions as they have regarding corporations? Maybe because this particular case dealt with corporations, was explicitly about corporations, and, in the context of American politics, corporations have funds available for political campaign that are literally dozens of times larger than the unions' budget.


Now, regarding the libertarian right and this case, I am sure you will point to yourself as an example of someone who disliked this ruling. And that is fair.

But the point remains that the 5 members that voted for this ruling have consistently called themselves strict constitutionalists, have argued that they were so during their confirmation hearings, and have publicly supported the notion of a "strict constitutionalism." Furthermore, They were selected and confirmed by politicians and by a political movement that has as its overt theme the idea that the supreme court needs to return to a "strict constitutionalist" stance. So while you might be an exception, I think it is pretty fair to say that the justices themselves and the people who selected them are a significant chunk of the entire libertarian and strict constitutionalist movement.

Baraka_Guru, yes. And to me, that includes unions as persons, as well. I'm stating that philosophical objection. It's the only point I'm making at this point.

Art, I'm now picturing two armies locked in unending battle to the death: one consisting of corporate doppelganger chimeras, the other of union doppelganger chimeras. They are, of course, no smaller than gargantuan. Take that as you will.

Epic.

i dont object to unions being able to act politically in the same way that i object to corporations being able to.
first off, at this point the union movement is in disarray. there are some strong pockets and i hope to see more mobilization and new types of union action because without banding together working people are powerless against capital. conservatives just happen to like that state of affairs.

but the reason i think the union-corporate entity equation false is as a matter which which types of interest each represents. unions represent a far greater cross-section of the material and personal interests of the working people who join them.
corporations represent the interests of the holders of capital.
there is a basic difference between them, which i think this little blurb makes clear.

i see unions as being in themselves political organizations to the extent that the function to take power away from capital and transfer it to the rank-and-file. this despite the sector-monopoly model that the good ole afraid-of-the-reds us of a adopted after world war 2.
so i think it is a basic capitulation to years of conservative propaganda to lump unions in with corporate persons.

Baraka_Guru, yes.

And I don't see what is gained by granting those two armies, you describe, the legal status of persons.
I do however, see very much is lost - in terms of the personhood of individuals - by that move.

So corporations can make unlimited contributions but I can only contribute $2500 or whatever the limit is?

if unions were even 1/2 as powerful as people think they are, there wouldn't BE a Republican party

3 thoughts are in my mind as I read the discussion about this decision.

1) The freedom of speech shall not be infringed. This is a good thing, even though folks are whining about unlimited corporate interest money flooding election campaigns now. That can be addressed later.

2) right here and now is the perfect time to force the court to reconsider contracted corporate entities and having constitutional rights as a person woud, or not. If the courts would like to continue that absurd line of thinking, then lets amend the constitution in some way that removes 'personhood' from a corporate entity.

3) the claims about the 5 justices on the right, libertarianism, strict constructionist BS, and all the other ideological crap is just that. It's crap. Who runs this country? WE THE PEOPLE run this country. To those saying that the most money will now elect a candidate for office, answer why that is. When you come up with the right answer, work to change it.

WE THE PEOPLE have not run this country in a long time

$$$ is the reason

ok. I would somewhat agree. Now, how do we change that within the scope of what we have right now?

The whole "strict constructionist" angle is not crap simply because it is a significant movement within constitutional law circles and this decision makes it clear that the "strict constructionist" position is also actively "legislating from the bench." This was a much more restricted case, and, as the dissenting opinion expressed, there was no need to invoke arguments regarding broad constitutional precedent that way. That is, Roberts et al went out of their way to broaden the scope of the lawsuit. And then they went an extra step in that direction by saying that corporations are entitled to those rights, and that donations are a matter of free speech.

Last I checked, the media is a corporation. Foxnews spent the entire election cycle heavily supporting McCain. CNN, MSNBC, HLN, NBC, ABC, CBS spent the entire cycle heavily supporting Obama. There was no constraint on their support because they operate under the guise of a free press. I am having a difficult time seeing how these corporations can have up-to-the-minute-of-the-election support of candidates, and all other corporations shouldn't be able.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want ANY corporations to give money directly to a candidate. I don't want them to use money to create an advertisement in support of a candidate. They should use that money to advance their businesses through the free market, rather than politics. However, the media corporations have such an advantage for whatever candidate/issue they support...well, you understand my point.

I don't know the solution, I suppose I lament that we have lost our free press.

I'm flabbergasted by this ruling. Completely appalled. When is one of these idiots going to die?

Following on that, why do we appoint justices to the SC for life? There's a reason our form of government was designed the way it was - to prevent one person or one family from keeping the people under their boots forever - but it doesn't seem to apply to the Supreme Court. Why is that?

:confused:

The so called 'strict constructionist' sitting on the bench is in no way, shape, or form a strict constructionist. In fact, I would venture to say that 8 of the 9 people sitting on that bench don't really care about the constitution as it is, but rather their idealized version of it.

Legislating from the bench started long before I was alive, so this is nothing new. Nearly everybody here likes to confuse the term 'judicial activism', applying it when they read a decision they don't agree with. It has a much simpler concept, but there aren't a whole lot of people willing to make that leap of truth.

now this part I agree strongly on. It's been said so many times that the USSC only answers the questions that are directly in front of them. They've done this dozens and dozens of times, much to the detriment of the people. It was totally out of character and out of line for the majority to make such a radical turn to come to the ruling that they have.

---------- Post added at 03:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 PM ----------

part of this lawsuit was about that specific issue. The FEC has a media exception built in to the law, therefore the news outlets that you mentioned are exempt.

I could suggest you start using non mainstream sources of news, like bloggers, but most people aren't ready to accept that as journalism at this point.

---------- Post added at 04:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:59 PM ----------

it was designed that way to keep the courts impartial and unswayed by the politics of the other two. To make the judiciary independent. That stopped being that way around 1833.

This has a lot to do with the fact that the money corporations spend on politics dwarf what unions spend by at least a factor of 17.
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The goose in this case is the size of Godzilla and the gander the size of maybe an elephant. If Godzilla and an elephant were let loose on Tokyo, which would you be talking about? Be honest.

If you really want to drag partisanship into this, answer me this: who appointed the 5 justices that voted for this and who appointed the 4 against?

Bloggers are the most biased "news source" available. People just like them because its so easy to find a few that you agree with