The Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, permitting unlimited corporate spending on election campaigns, cast a devastating blow against democracy.
By a 5 – 4 vote, the high court’s conservative majority abandoned longstanding legal precedents dating back over a century, to 1907, and culminating in the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002. It did so by declaring that corporations’ First Amendment right to free speech trumped all other considerations, including the right of the public to free and fair elections. Although we surely are strong defenders of the First Amendment, this ruling strikes at the very heart of democracy.
What is really at issue is not the free speech of corporations but unlimited spending that could corrupt the democratic electoral process.
The decision relies on a fallacy that equates a corporation’s rights with those of real persons. A corporation is a legal entity, not a person. Corporations control vast sums of money and now have carte blanche to influence campaigns by pouring money into advertising. Corporations can unduly threaten or punish elected officials and their appointees who support measures that are inimical to the wishes of special interests.
Defenders of the ruling point out that if it benefits corporations, it also expands the rights of labor unions. What a charade. The economic resources of corporations dwarf those of unions. President Barack Obama expressed fear that big money from corporate giants, oil barons, or Wall Street banks may dominate or even buy elections.
The overturning of precedent involved in this decision is especially disconcerting. During his nomination hearings, Chief Justice John Roberts claimed that he would be a defender of settled law based on precedent. Yet as Justice John Paul Stevens (who just turned ninety) pointed out in his dissenting opinion, the Court has assumed an activist role—as it did when it refused to allow the presidential vote counting to go on in Florida and threw the 2000 election to George W. Bush.
Can anything be done to overturn this ruling? It is very difficult to pass a constitutional amendment. The best remedy is for presidents to select Supreme Court justices who will rescind this unfortunate ruling. But that will take time, and its course is uncertain. At the very least, shareholders should be permitted to vote on whether their companies should spend monies on political campaigns.
There is one last resort: for the public to scrutinize the amount of money spent by corporations on partisan campaigns. Consumers can exercise their free speech; they can boycott the products and services of those companies that engage in antidemocratic practices. Why support a company that wields its economic power to influence elections in directions with which we disagree?
This unfortunate Supreme Court ruling has unnecessarily compromised the very foundations of our democracy. It will be a long, hard battle to preserve our liberties as a free people.
Paul Kurtz is chair emeritus of the Center for Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is the editor in chief of Free Inquiry.
CFI SUMMIT
OCTOBER 24-27 2013
TACOMA, WASHINGTON
Joint Conference of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
The transnational secular humanist magazine
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