excerpt from lyles, 2011, pp. 155-156
[remember, i wrote this in 2011, before Hobby Lobby in 2014]
Citizens United removed most restrictions on corporate and union expenditures except for disclosure requirements. The Opinion of the Court provoked a strong dissent and also provoked much discussion off the Court. Opponents decried the opinion and claimed that it opened the floodgates for money to enter the political system, especially from corporations. They reject the claim that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as individuals. Moreover, they argue that there are compelling concerns about the integrity of elections that justify some speech regulation. Proponents argue that the case has finally removed untenable restrictions on corporate speech that cannot be squared with the First Amendment. Moreover, they claim that the decision allows more speech into the marketplace of ideas. They also point out that many powerful unions joined with corporations to oppose the law.
A particularly interesting example of the public discussion generated by this case occurred at President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union Address. Several Supreme Court Justices usually attend State of the Union speeches and are seated near the front. Despite very partisan responses from the members of Congress, the justices normally do not clap or show emotion that is related to substantive issues. The practice symbolizes their impartiality. Likewise, any criticism of the Supreme Court or one of its decisions is rare and usually indirect. For example, Presidents may criticize things such as “activist” judges, or implicitly criticize a rulingsuch as Roe v. Wade, but they rarely directly criticize the Supreme Court in that setting. President Obama, however, took brief but direct aim at Citizens United. In addition to stating a general criticism, he suggested that for the first time foreign corporations would now be free to try to influence American elections. Justice Samuel Alito was seen by television cameras as shaking his head and mouthing the words “not true.” The actual wording of the opinion does not resolve the disagreement between President Obama and Justice Alito. Much of the logic of the opinion would support the president’s reading, but the Court did not foreclose treating foreign corporations differently. Nevertheless, it was quite a moment.
The effects of Citizen United remain to be seen. Few doubt that it will increase the amount of money in politics. Whom that will favor is less predictable. Some argue that it is a slam-dunk victory for business interests. Though many unions supported the decision, given the declining strength of unions, most people see it as much more a victory for corporate interests. But corporate interests and business interests are not always the same. Some believe that corporations will use their power to seek regulations that will benefit them, often at the expense of small businesses. The opinion has left Congress greatly restrained on what it can regulate, but some believe that Congress could enhance disclosure requirements in ways that might discourage corporations from using their monetary muscle in areas that do not affect them directly. In any event, this case is an excellent reminder that law and politics are inevitably intertwined.
See also: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission/
- TITLE: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
- FACTS: In January 2008, Citizens United, a conservative non-profit organization in the United States, released a 90 minute documentary entitled “Hillary: The Movie” which expressed opinions about whether Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would make a good president. Citizens United distributed the movie in theaters and on DVD, but wanted to broadcast it on television and make it available through video-on-demand. In order to do so, Citizens United planned on using its general treasury funds. Under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002, corporations and unions are prohibited from spending their general treasury funds on “electioneering communications” or for speech that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a candidate. The Act defines an “electioneering communication” as any broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that (1) refers to a clearly identified candidate for federal office, (2) is made within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election, and (3) is publicly distributed. Citizens United sought an injunction against the Federal Election Commission in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the application of the BCRA to its film. Citizens United argued that: 1) Section 203 violates the First Amendment on its face and when applied to their movie and its related advertisements, and that 2) Sections 201 and 203 are also unconstitutional as applied to the circumstances. The district court denied this motion and granted summary judgment to the FEC. Section 203 on its face was not unconstitutional because the Supreme Court in McConnell v. FEC had already reached that determination. The District Court also held that the movie was the functional equivalent of express advocacy, as it attempted to inform voters that Senator Clinton was unfit for office, and thus Section 203 was not unconstitutionally applied. Lastly, it held that Sections 201 and 203 were not unconstitutional as applied to the the movie or its advertisements. The court reasoned that the McConnell decision recognized that disclosure of donors “might be unconstitutional if it imposed an unconstitutional burden on the freedom to associate in support of a particular cause,” but those circumstances did not exist in Citizen United’s claim.
- ISSUES PRESENTED:
- Did the Supreme Court’s decision in McConnell resolve all constitutional as-applied challenges to the BCRA when it upheld the disclosure requirements of the statute as constitutional?
- Do the BCRA’s disclosure requirements impose an unconstitutional burden when applied to electioneering requirements because they are protected “political speech” and not subject to regulation as “campaign speech”?
- If a communication lacks a clear plea to vote for or against a particular candidate, is it subject to regulation under the BCRA?
- Should a feature length documentary about a candidate for political office be treated like the advertisements at issue in McConnell and therefore be subject to regulation under the BCRA?
- HOLDING: No. No. Yes. Yes. Reversed, in a 5-4 decision with an opinion written by Justice Kennedy. Justice Stevens dissented, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor. Political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and the government may not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections. While corporations or unions may not give money directly to campaigns, they may seek to persuade the voting public through other means, including ads, especially where these ads were not broadcast.
- REASONING: The majority maintained that political speech is indispensable to a democracy, which is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation. Justice Kennedy stated that “The First Amendment protects the resulting speech, even if it was enabled by economic transactions with persons or entities who disagree with the speaker’s ideas…No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.” The First Amendment gives people the freedom to think for themselves, and by restricting corporate speech, the government silenced voices that best represent the most important segments of the economy. The majority also held that the BCRA’s disclosure requirements as applied to The Movie were constitutional, reasoning that disclosure is justified by a “governmental interest” in providing the “electorate with information” about election-related spending resources. The Court also upheld the disclosure requirements for political advertising sponsors and it upheld the ban on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.
- CONCURRING/DISSENTING OPINION: In a separate concurring opinion, Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justice Alito, emphasized the care with which the Court handles constitutional issues and its attempts to avoid constitutional issues when at all possible. Here, the Court had no narrower grounds upon which to rule, except to handle the First Amendment issues embodied within the case. Justice Scalia also wrote a separate concurring opinion, joined by Justices Alito and Thomas in part, criticizing Justice Stevens’ understanding of the Framer’s view towards corporations. Justice Stevens argued that corporations are not members of society and that there are compelling governmental interests to curb corporations’ ability to spend money during local and national elections.
The exception for PACs is due to the fact that a PAC is a completely separate association from a corporation. Additionally, many corporations do not operate PACs because they are expensive to administer and subject to extensive regulations. Thus, the option for a corporation to speak politically through a PAC is not a valid option and does not fulfill the First Amendment requirement of freedom of speech for corporations.
Youn brought up an interesting point of how she doesn’t believe the SC understood the question at hand in the Citizen’s United case.
I think that this perspective is very valuable, as how the SC interprets the question makes all the difference.
This panel was very interesting to watch, being how the panel was comprised of so many different opinions and viewpoints on this topic. The case of Citizen’s United, created this great emphasis on corporations having voices, such as individuals have voices. The whole question that was posed a lot of the time was if now, as corporations have powers just as people, there would be a lot of corporate influence on elections. One point that caught me was that of Issacharoff: he mentioned that the one concern is that: when overregulation occurs, the money is still going to flow to the unregulated. As such, he states that the only place we can truly regulate where money goes during elections, is to the candidates; as they are only allowed a certain amount each. He also made this point that PACS and Independent Expenditures already “poison” the political environment, using their money to fund and support candidates directly. But now, the greater point is that unions and corporations can now give money to campaigns, as long as its not going directly to the candidate. Even so, as was also mentioned in the panel, there was an election in California where two of the top 10 donors of a candidate were very wealthy individuals. They still have their own money, not a collaborative fund in the name of a corporation. Personally, I see it as the same thing.
Personally, I think that yes, corporations should have the right to be treated as individuals. Since corporations are made up of individuals,, even if the corporations weren’t allowed to give money, the individuals would still find a way to get their message across. At the same time, it is so easy to become a PAC, so how is it that they could have more power, to fund and support campaigns. PACS could also be made up of people, so to me, corporations and PACS are very similar. One point that was made in the panel was this idea of lobbying, how it can be an indirect measure of influence. However, when one goes to lobby, it is in a way more indirect and private, but one is still arguing for their point and message to get to the other side. More regulation is not going to bring about more “unbias”, because bias is around us everywhere; everyone will have the power to speak their mind, because everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
Having Citizens United post their movie on TV is an right of their free speech and expression. Anyone who would be seeing that movie also has the freedom to not watch the movie.
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I found this panel to be very interesting. It was interesting to see the points brought up by Floyd Abrams and Monica Youn. Abrams gave us a very absolute viewpoint on speech. He views the judges who dissented in this case and in the previous cases related to money/corporations as a threat. His point about political speech being more protected than other forms of speech was also very interesting to me. Youn gave us the opposite viewpoint of this case. She stated that money is not a form of speech and is more a way for corporations to influence politicians. She argues that this case isn’t about protected speech but more about how money is used by these politicians. I think she makes a good point. By turning election campaigning into a race to see who can gather the most money to gain influence ruins the purpose of our democracy. It also leaves out the impoverished, who cannot be influenced in the same way as these corporations. I do understand Abrams point and also do not fully disagree with it. Corporations are comprised of people and those people have the full ability to exercise their first Amendment rights. The part where I am concerned, however, is if money can be used to magnify that speech. I personally do not think it is right form of expression. However, just because I don’t think its right doesn’t make it wrong. It is a complex situation with both sides having valid points.
I believe that Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is a tricky case in which many people view putting limitations on corporations as a way of protecting people from being influenced. At the end of the day, the conversation could go both ways, with large corporations giving big sums of money to advertise their beliefs. People can choose to not pay attention to what is being advertised. Both Republicans and Democrats use corporations and both can make ads that favor each other and even make ads slandering their opponents. Youn stated that money is not speech and I believe that fully.
I think it was a great discussion to hear, and I think both sides had good points. First I would agree that silencing movie about Hilary is a overstep on freedom of expression, I think people have a right to know about who they are voting and people have a right to express what they want to. Although I also agree that huge influence of corporations over political issues and their influence on politicians makes their decision biased, and it causes underrepresentation of groups who might not have that amount of funds
I thought that the video was pretty interesting and provided a lot of differing opinions on Citizen’s United. I really liked Youn’s argument that money could be used as a backdoor to influence politicians and that money is not necessarily speech. I tend to agree with her that this case is about how money could be spent rather than about campaign speech.
I thought it was interesting that Abrams referenced the diminishing power of unions and then kept on referring to “Citizens United” as “Citizens Union” which I wonder if it was on purpose or just a slip of tongue. I also really like how Youn presented the case as I felt like she presented her points in a way that was easy to follow and I generally found myself agreeing with her. As far as the case as a whole goes I wonder with how much fundraising and campaign communications have changed if the cases is as salient as it was prior to social media.
The mention of President Obama’s direct criticism during the 2010 State of the Union Address adds a fascinating dimension to the discourse. The visual disagreement between President Obama and Justice Alito serves as a reminder of the rare instances when the executive branch directly challenges a Supreme Court decision. The unresolved disagreement over the interpretation of the opinion underscores the nuanced nature of legal decisions and their real-world implications. I found it interesting that the panel addressed how elections can be viewed as a business. I like that the panel addressed the overall influence and monopoly of large corporations in politics.
The panel gave a lot of insight on aspects of how the government and how money is power. It reminded me of India how you can get away with anything due to being able to throw money at it. This case is no different, money for corporations can really by pass anything and everything. You can see how one person takes the side of corporations being able to spend money to do whatever that needs to be done and the other is against it. It’s something I feel as we turn a blind eye. By this I mean, is it truly surprising that money runs politics? At the end of the day what do pretty much all humans want ? Corrupted money and ill iintent money to have politicians side and do what corporations want is always going to be around. The world runs on money and people will do tons of things for it.
Youn’s comments about money ring true. Whether we accept it or not, money talks, and politicians, ill regard voter grievances, personal stances, or party stances, will toe the line for whoever spends the most on their campaign finances to remain in office. Albeit, some voters do have some sway, however, it is meaningless if the corporations could just influence them through media of their own. This is why it is important for voters to be aware.
I found this panel to be very informative, and I enjoyed hearing the facts and background of the case from Floyd Abrams himself. I really enjoyed listening to Monica Youn talking about the case as she interprets what the case stands for. Youn argues the case is not an issue about protected speech but rather what is being done to use and spread such speech and with whose money. Her points were very interesting to digest throughout the panel. My favorite point of hers was the court is concerned that the government has muffled the voices of corporations, so they are treating this case like it’s about censored speech that is supposed to be free. She argues that it is not censorship as the problem by treating corporations like people will lift safeguards that keep elections from being bought out under us.
I thought the panel was very informative and relevant to what is going on in today’s government and judicial system. I think it was more informative because panel members had different perspectives on the Citizens United v. Federal Election ruling. Youn made a very interesting statement: “Money is speech, money enables speech, money has a relation to speech, money is regulated all the time in ways that people don’t cry First Amendment foul.” I think what she is saying is very true– the more money a corporation has to offer, the more likely a politician or government agency is to take their stance. This argument brings to light that political spending can ruin elections in a democratic country. Professor Issacharoff also made a very interesting comment regarding whether the government can ban books, and yes, they can, but it goes against the First Amendment. Banning and burning books goes back to what happened during WWII when Hitler and the Nazis were burning books. This comment is very interesting, considering some politicians are banning books in certain states. It is erasing history and making it so that anyone who reads the banned books can be punished.
This panel offers many different perspectives on the case, specifically I think the quote from Youn sums up my opinion where she declares “Money is speech, money enables speech, money has a relation to speech, money is regulated all the time in ways that people don’t cry first amendment foul”. I think this holds to a lot to what I believe where this case is not determined by censorship or speech but more so political spending. This argument is extended to how political spending can ruin elections by democratic standards through monopolization. By converting the election into a marketplace and accepting corporations to be people. This opens a floodgate to how advertisements are ran and becomes dominated by corporations themselves instead of “the people” for whom the elections are for.
A quote that stuck out to me as I listened to the panel came from Professor Samuel Issacharoff. He discusses one of the core issues stemming from the Citizens United decision being the lack of accountability on independent expenditures from corporations and unions. Ideally, says Professor Issacharoff, all expenditures ought to go through the candidates themselves, as they are the ones that are ultimately accountable to the voters. While candidates are highly accountable, there are few measures to hold corporations accountable for their actions – and much fewer post-Citizens United. This lack of accountability leaves the door open for dirty tactics like “hate ads,” as Professor Issacharoff mentions. He sums the whole issue up with this: “As a regulatory policy matter, I think that that’s the worst of all worlds.” I think his words sum up this entire case; with this decision, we live in the worst of all worlds.
I thought this panel was very interesting and informative. I liked how each member of the panel had a different perspective on the ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission with Abrams agreeing with the ruling, Youn disagreeing with the ruling, and Issacharoff having a neutral/in-between position on the ruling. Youn raises interesting points in her argument, including saying that Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is not a case about corporate speech or censorship, rather it is a case about corporate political spending. She argues that in order for a person to accept corporate political spending as being corporate political speech that they would have to 1.) accept that money is speech 2.) accept that corporations are people and 3.) accept that elections should be a marketplace. I personally agree with Youn’s argument that this case was not about free speech, but rather about corporate political spending. I also believe that there should be limitations on corporate political spending, especially in terms of how corporations contribute/spend money towards a political campaign.
In the forum about Citizens United v. FEC, I think one of the most obvious, but impactful comments came from Samuel Isaacharoff when he stated “[The lobbyists] don’t care who gets into office so much, because their view is that—through lobbying—they can buy whoever is in office once they are there…” This highlights a very prevalent issue in American politics, blatant corruption disguised as “lobbying.” Much of the debate surrounding the free speech and power of corporations deals with their power to contribute to elections and spend their money on endorsing candidates. There have been many cases about this very issue, including Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United v. FEC, however the decisions of these cases do not address the greater issue, they simply diagnose, or misdiagnose, a small part of the problem. In my personal view, the discussion needs to not focus solely on campaign finance law and contribution, it also needs to focus on what lobbying powers corporations have in relation to politicians already in office. It is much more efficient for a large corporation to lobby an already elected politician, rather than spending their time and money to get someone new elected. While campaign finance has clearly proved to be a difficult area to regulate and legislate for, I believe curbing the powers of corporations to lobby already elected members of Congress is not only a more effective, efficient, and more impactful rejection of blatant corporate overreach.
This is one of those cases that has me speaking from both sides of my mouth. I find myself double-speaking. From a neutrality standpoint regarding political speech, the belief that all entities, including corporations and unions, should have equal rights to express political opinions resonates with a commitment to the universal application of free speech rights. This viewpoint, which I support, emphasizes that a genuinely democratic discourse thrives on including diverse and collective voices. It aligns with the principle that in a democratic society, there should be no discrimination between speakers, whether they are individuals, corporations, or unions. One can argue that by allowing these varied entities to participate in political conversations, primarily during election cycles, we enrich the democratic debate and ensure many perspectives reflecting different societal segments.
However (This is where I try to have it both ways), this approach also brings forth the challenge of maintaining democratic equality. While advocating for neutrality in speech rights, there is a parallel need to be vigilant against the potential for disproportionate influence by powerful entities.
Is it possible to craft a law primarily to balance the universal right to free speech with safeguarding a democratic process that remains equitable and representative of all voices, not just the most powerful? I do not have the answer!
This forum provides us with three different perspectives on the protective measures on speech.
Floyd Abrams provides us with an absolutist viewpoint, arguing that speech regardless of corporate involvement, should be protected. He even goes on to say that he believes that the four Justices who dissented in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission are dangerous.
Monica Youn offers another viewpoint, stating that this case was not looking at a question of whether the speech is protected but rather focuses on the funding source for ads specifically, corporate political spending. She further explains how corporate political spending is a problem in a system of one person, one vote, a system that is predicated by the people.
Sam Issacharoff offers a third perspective, one where he is in the middle of both. He mentions governmental reach and the skepticism that many hold. He mentions the danger of overregulating in one domain, and he also mentions the danger of corporations in our speech. He proposes holding candidates accountable of where they get their money form.
My perspective falls between Youn’s and Issacharoff’s. I recognize how big money influences elections but at the same time I understand how big concentrations of government regulation. I think that closing many of the loopholes would fix alleviate the problem that big money holds on democracy.
Youn mentioned 3 metaphors that succinctly describe the central themes of the debate:
1. Money is not speech – All of us recognize that money itself is not speech, otherwise all other regulations on the economy would be a violation of the 1st amendment. While I agree with that statement, that doesn’t mean that constitutional rights can have monetary barriers. As we learned in Murdock v. Pennsylvania, constitutional rights cannot have government imposed monetary barriers in order to be practiced. So it seems to me that if corporations have 1st amendment rights, restrictions on their spending would not be allowed in the same way that if it were placed on an individual.
2. Corporations are people – I still don’t really understand this argument. My current understanding is that if corporations are people, they should have all the rights that a private citizen has, including 1st amendment protections. Does the constitution specifically point out that rights only apply to citizens? The beginning of the 1st amendment begins with “Congress shall make no law…” and as far as I can tell the constitution doesn’t make a distinction between people and corporations. I also feel that there’s a better argument to make. If rights only apply to individuals, wouldn’t rights also belong to associations between individuals? What is a corporation if not an association between individuals (distinction between publicly owned companies vs private family-owned companies)? It seems to me that a corporation would have the same rights as an individual if this holds.
3. Elections should be a marketplace – Youn seems to hold that if corporations are allowed to spend, that would somehow destroy democracy. I don’t really see that being true. At the end of the day, voters still have absolute power. If they are swayed by advertisements, then I feel that this is legitimate electioneering.
My overall take is that while the overall court decision stepped in the right direction in protecting corporate free speech, I don’t think constitutional rights are absolute. For example, I think people have the right to know where the money goes and which people are funding whom. I also think that deception should not be allowed in political advertisements (or any advertisements). I also think that if this decision turns out to be a complete disaster for democracy – which I don’t think there is requisite evidence for – then I think it would be constitutional to revoke the rights of corporations.
I believe that Youn has some of the most interesting opinions on this particular case. I agree with her that this was not about censorship but rather the consolidation of Corporate interests. As Youn says, the lifting of the safeguard that protects our elections from being out was essentially done with the Citizens United case. Although corporations are people, it is not the people who choose where their contributions but rather the corporation itself, and although the people have the right to or not to contribute to political action committees, I feel as if that makes little difference in the amount spent.
One of Abrams arguments in which I found interesting is his fundamentalist idea of the first amendment and his argument that the way in which the court handled this case is a form of censorship. In his perspective it wasn’t about the content nor the way Citizens United distributed the content, that this was a standard form of censorship on the courts behalf, as they could have gone a different route without limiting speech, such as taxation.
Citizen United v. FEC
Ruling: no distinction betweens the first amendment rights of individuals and corporations in the electoral context; may also lead to corruption.
Youn’s comments on money not necessarily being speech is interesting to me. She says that money enables speech, but it is not speech in itself. Of course, there is an argument that by enabling speech, it is effectively speech, if not literally speech. Additionally, I think money of itself can be speech. For example, we may see a headline like “1.5 million dollars donated to X by Y”. Even if we do not get press release from X or Y explaining a partnership or why the donation was made, it is still a reasonable inference to make from that headline that there is the support of X by Y. That support may amount to an endorsement in our minds, even if it is not explicitly said. Therefore, I do believe that money can enable speech and is essentially speech in certain purposes, but the transfer and spending of money itself can be speech too in my mind.
On another note, though, I do believe that speech and money can still be regulated themselves. As Youn pointed out, there are restrictions on spending by corporations in other contexts, and we are unable to do simply anything with money. If so, banking law, and tax law would be essentially worthless. Knowingly supporting money laundering can result in a conspiracy charge, so we’re not free to do whatever we want with money even as individuals. Finally, we learned of examples throughout this semester of limitations on speech, such as what we saw in Schneck as just an example. So, while I do believe money is speech or speech, I do still believe it can be regulated by the government.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding campaign finance laws and free speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It was argued in 2009 and decided in 2010. The court held 5-4 that the free speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, including nonprofit corporations, labor unions, and other associations.
The case began after Citizens United, a conservative non-profit organization, sought to air and advertise a film critical of then Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shortly before the 2008 Democratic primary elections. Broadcasting the film would have been a violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which prohibited any corporation, non-profit organization or labor union from making an “electioneering communication” within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of an election, or making any expenditure advocating the election or defeat of a candidate at any time. Citizens United challenged the constitutionality of this law, and its case reached the Supreme Court.
This panel addressed corporate spending along with the involvement of elections. For instance, it was mentioned how elections can be viewed as a marketplace/business. This is because a panelist made a point saying that those of wealthier income, have a better ability to influencing other votes through money. It was mentioned that big corporations influence elections much more than ordinary citizens. This is because of the power these big corporations hold, along with all the resources offered to them, which they can always offer to the candidates of their desire. This obviously goes against ordinary citizens and I think can even be abusing power. In my opinion it should be equal to the voting rights of ordinary people.
I wrote about the Citizens United decision for my final paper last semester with Professor Dick Simpson. It’s a topic that I have been more or less interested since highschool, since so many of my teachers vehemently opposed the Court’s ruling. I recognized a lot of the decisions mentioned by Abrahams, as I had to do research on Buckley v Valeo, the Belloti case, the Taft-Harley Act, and so forth. At around the 14 minute mark, the speaker reads some of the main points from the ruling, and pays specific mind to Justice Kennedy. Interestingly enough, when I did my research I came across an article where Kennedy explains that the Citizens United ruling “is not working as the way it should.” I’ll share the article below, but I’m particularly biased since I wrote a paper denouncing the ruling because I do not believe corporations should be seen as people. They are creatures of the state, established by associations of people, and are subject to regulation due primarily to the corporate nature of their being. If successful enough, they can transcend the livespan of the people who founded them, and can and will use their profits to create a favorable wedge for their preferred candidates. The Constitution lacks any mention of corporations and their endowment of First Amendment rights because they did not seem them as persons. Corporations, by definition, are profit-seeking entities, therefore the reasons behind their involvement in politics should be clear. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/citizens-united-anthony-kennedy_n_5637c481e4b0631799134b92
Citizens United vs FEC 558 US 310 (2010)
Facts: Citizens United ran televisions commercials during the 2008 campaign promoting its film “Hillary: The Movie,” a documentary critical of Senator Hillary Clinton, and also arranged to show the movie on Direct TV.
Legal Issue: 1) Did the Supreme Court’s decision in McConnell resolve all constitutional as-applied challenges to the BCRA when it upheld the disclosure requirements of the statute as constitutional?
2) Do the BCRA’s disclosure requirements impose an unconstitutional burden when applied to electioneering requirements because they are protected “political speech” and not subject to regulation as “campaign speech”?
3) If a communication lacks a clear plea to vote for or against a particular candidate, is it subject to regulation under the BCRA?
4) Should a feature length documentary about a candidate for political office be treated like the advertisements at issue in McConnell and therefore be subject to regulation under the BCRA?
Holding: Question 1) No; Question 2) No; Question 3) Yes; Question 4) Yes. 5-4 decision where the Supreme court struck down provisions of the McCain-Feingold Act that prohibited all corporations, both for-profit and not-for-profit, and unions from broadcasting electioneering communications.
Reasoning: majority maintained that political speech is indispensable to a democracy, which is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, justice Scalia, Alito, and Thomas. They maintained that political speech is indispensable to a democracy, which is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation. The majority also held that the BCRA’s disclosure requirements as applied to The Movie were constitutional, reasoning that disclosure is justified by a “governmental interest” in providing the “electorate with information” about election-related spending resources. The Court also upheld the disclosure requirements for political advertising sponsors and it upheld the ban on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.
Dissent: Justices Stevens, joined by justices Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor dissented. Stevens said “The framers thus took it as a given that corporations could be comprehensively regulated in the service of the public welfare.”
Additional notes: citizens united does NOT cover “self-funding”. There are a variety of different viewpoints on citizens united, but there are also different questions that need to be asked on what the case was actually covering. Some take it as an entitlement theory approach and some said it deals with corruption if you watch the forum discussing the case.
I thought the panel was extremely interesting, and it gave me a new perspective on corporation spending and involvement in elections. Especially when the concept of money enabling free speech and the fact that yes corporations are made up of people but they are not people – as I said in class previously, such large expenditures as the ones we see now are part of the reason many political races lack competition aside from partisanship.
In this panel, I found it very informative to hear different perspectives about the case of Citizens United. I would like to address and agree that Isacharoggs point about how corporations shouldnt be allowed to freely contribute their money to different campaign elections as certain individuals do because there can be many negative effects associated with this.There needs to be a law on how corporations can donate contributions to campaign elections because there is much motivated greed and corruption behind this. I also find it important to think of a solution for the future that will prevent corporations from having just as equal rights as individuals when it comes to political motivation such as these.
I find Issacharoff’s viewpoint in this forum interesting given how moderate he is on Citizens United and campaign expenditures in general. Basically he gives one argument stating that there was no settled law on contributions before Buckley vs Valeo, and that Buckley was mainly addressing corruption. And the other one being his view that the concern with the majority opinion in Citizens United was that it “reaches beyond the prohibition on government incentives, motives and power.” Even stating that this creates this entitlement theory extension to corporations. I agree with him that the case is not about entitlement but the extension at which citizens united and campaign contributions as a whole can transcend to. Overall it was great to hear different perspectives on the case at hand and even get some background from the forum speaker who argued the case before the Supreme Court.
I found Monica Youns statement to be the most eye-opening to me. Before hearing her statement, I often regarded money as speech because money is able to express thoughts. However, she explains money itself is not speech, but rather it enables speech. She argued that money is regulated differently than speech is.
This panel was interesting to watch. I agreed with Monica Youn on her perspective of Citizens United V. FEC, and it was interesting to hear her analogies and thoughts about the implications of this case’s outcome. I liked how the panel introduced different opinions and even had an individual who argued in court for the case.
The forum was informative and it was good to see differing opinions. Some make the argument that corporations are being given the same rights as individuals (but they have more power than the individual) but this is done to prevent censorship of the corporations. That is why some claim that “one person one vote” does not apply. Monica Youn’s claims that Citizens United is not a censorship case but that it is presented that way. Issacharroffs point out that these cases get covered in a positive light by the media since the media is a corporation and I just found that so profound.
The panel was very informative about Citizens United v FEC. They had three members on the panel, each who presented a different view on the case itself. It was good to hear from the viewpoint of the right, the left, and the middle. I agree most with the woman who spoke about the case. I thought it was interesting that she was the only panel member who received applause after speaking. She explained how the Supreme Court found that money is speech with the decision in the Citizens United case. Corporations were permitted by the Supreme Court to spend money to promote candidates or dissuade voters from certain candidates. This decision ensures that the wealthy stay in power as they have more resources to promote candidates who promote their agenda. It was a very controversial opinion for the Court.
The forum was extremely informative and I enjoyed viewing the differences between opinions. While I understand that censorship of speech usually is negative, I can’t reconcile while corporations are being given the same rights as individuals when they have so much more power than the average individual. I also found it so interesting how the media was brought up. I believe it was Issacharroffs point when he said how these cases get covered in a positive light by the media since the media is a corporation and I just found that so profound. It shows how just because the media is covering something in a certain way, doesn’t necessarily mean citizens have that viewpoint. Furthermore, I agree with Youn’s viewpoint on how this is not a freedom of speech case, but rather about political spending. Money is speech, and corporations should not be able to endorse candidates or policies without having some limitations.
After viewing the panel discussion on Citizens United V FEC, I agree most with Monica Youns and Isacharroff’s point of view towards the Court’s decision. There are negative effects when corporations are allowed to freely contribute money to campaign elections without any sort of restrictions and regulations. The candidate with the most funds almost always wins the election. This decision of the Court does, in fact, turn elections into a free marketplace as Youns had mentioned. I guess that’s why the “independent” candidate in state and/or federal elections always falls through the cracks despite possibly having the best interest of Americans in mind. I found the Court’s reasoning that “Political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment” to be ridiculous because money is not a form of speech in my opinion. At the same time, I don’t really find the decision of the Robert’s Court surprising. I mean this is the same Court that just recently overruled Roe V Wade. There have always existed lobbyists pushing for “special interests” on behalf of corporations. Corporations have always contributed as much money as they wish for whatever candidate they support. It would just occur behind the scenes. However, with this Court’s decision, now corporations are free to contribute out in the open. This decision dilutes the ‘one person, one vote’ because corporations are now considered individuals with individual rights, thus their money gives their vote more weight than the average American.
The Forum brought up some interesting opinions on this case and allowed for multiple views to be heard. I find Monica Youn’s points to be intriguing and important to note what our future in elections may hold. Her third metaphor mentions, “elections should be a marketplace,” where she notes that the person with the most money has the best ability to buy influence. She also mentions that this is basically going to lead to unlimited corporate political spending. This metaphor is a possibility that may deem corporations to hold greater influence over ordinary citizens. I think Sam Issacharoff also further adds to this notion by stating that this case reaches beyond government power and creates this entitlement theory of the First Amendment which now includes corporations. Corporations have the power and resources to give to candidates and parties and they are not being regulated because according to the case “Money is speech” and they have the right to do so. However, it’s important to wonder at what point will corporations’ money and control lead to a domination over elections, if it hasn’t done so already, and at what point the courts will step in.
Although it is essential to protect freedom of speech, the decision in Citizens United vs FEC lets corporations have an immense amount of influence on political campaigns and thus a tremendous amount of influence on voters. In the panel, although Abrams laid out an argument as to why political spending by corporations is protected under the 1st amendment I found myself agreeing with Youn more often than not and I especially had to agree with her point about how money makes speech possible but is not speech itself.
The panel was very intriguing and informative. It was interesting that Monica Youn mentions that the case is not necessarily a censorship case. The case more so juggles the ideas of big corporations and large sums of money and their influences. She also mentions the views that money enables speech, corporations are people, and elections can become a marketplace where the one with the most money monopolizes the election and can, essentially, buy it out. This obviously becomes a problem in democracy where we pride ourselves on equal voices and equal votes. Issacharoff also brings up a good point regarding how a similar case such as New York Times v Sullivan brought to light innate concern for governmental motivation instead of the entitlement of particular speakers. The idea that we are very skeptical of government incentives, motives, and state authority also coincides with this view. Lastly, I thought it was important to note how he mentions that our country is deeply compelled by traditions. If we are deeply distrustful of our government but also don’t like large concentrations of money or power, thus innately liberty and equality have difficulty coexisting.
The panelists gave insight into their thoughts on Citizens United and the Federal Election Commission.
It is important to note that each panelist was respectful regardless of their differences. –
Although Abrams and Youn mentioned valid points in their statement, Issacharoff stood out to me the most. Issacharoff mentioned three main key points that pillar his argument. The first is that there were no settlement laws before this case. Second is the confrontation between two major traditions of the twentieth century. He conceptualizes the two extremes, which included the quality of the citizens and the liberal tradition. He mentions how both these ideas come together as a conflict in our society. The last point explains how overregulation of one area makes money flow to other unregulated areas. He brought up the concept of regulation and how it should flow to those accountable in the campaign.
Overall, Issacharoff took a neutral approach to the Supreme Court decision. It was insightful to learn about the different perspectives on Citizens United v. FEC (2010).
This panel was quite interesting. Youn brought up an interesting argument that the issue isn’t one of censorship. One of the key issues is whether or not these corporations should have the rights of citizens. They are not even close in the same realm since very few citizens would have such high influence on others’ choice of candidates. In the end, it comes down to money and naturally, there are more corporations with money that can spread their influence, rather than a single person. I don’t think corporations in general should be trying to persuade the public to vote a certain way regardless.
It is interesting to see the viewpoints from the immediate aftermath of the Citizens United ruling and I wonder how the views of the panelists have changed in the 12 years since. One particular part I found especially interesting was Abrams’s concern that the ACLU and the press were not necessarily taking the side of “free speech,” (I feel as though that should be an indicator that free speech had wandered too far from actual speech). The idea that most free speech cases dealing with the press are corporate speech since most outlets are corporate entities was also an interesting take from Issacharoff. However, I personally agree most with Youn as I vehemently oppose the idea of corporate personhood. If incorporation is done to essentially absolve an individual(s) of liability, shouldn’t they lose their personhood as they become increasingly intangible? While hearing Abrams’s perspective was able to close some gaps, the court’s decision and reasoning still seem like such a reach, as the facts of the case seem to be only loosely related to the implications of the ruling.
I would say that over the years I’ve mainly only heard the Youn perspective on the Citizens United case. This is likely a result of the circles I usually engage with, but it was interesting to hear Abrams explaining the court’s counterargument in the beginning of this panel. I especially thought the idea of political speech being even more protected than other forms of speech was a particularly strong argument. Fundamentally, I would still say that I agree with Youn’s side of the argument more, even if Abrams argument was more intriguing than I previously realized. Particularly, this idea that money is the same as speech, and corporations are the same as people seems somewhat outlandish to me. These two categories have been and should be regulated, because otherwise special interests will dominate politics at every level of the US government. Issacharoff also made some interesting points, if a little non-committal. Aside from that, I would say that the panel was both enjoyable and informative.
I thought the panel was interesting in the way they approached the ruling. I think Monica Youn’s point that Citizens United is not a censorship case is important, as that is how it is usually depicted as. I did also appreciate Issacharoff’s point that the case plays upon America’s contrary opinions against both large concentrations of money, like corporations, as well as our distrust of large concentrations of government. On multiple posts in this class, in particular regarding cases relating to speech, I was hesitant to support rulings that gave the government more power on regulating speech because I’m distrustful of the powerful controlling what the less powerful can say. That said, Citizens United allows corporations to take that power of controlling speech by unregulated spending. I don’t know if I would rather have the wealthy corporate owners or wealthy politicians owned by wealthy corporate owners controlling my speech, but I certainly don’t feel that “one person one vote” really is equivalent when comparing my speech to a corporation’s.
The Court overruled part of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission that held that corporations could be banned from making electioneering communications. The Court upheld the reporting and disclaimer requirements for independent expenditures and electioneering communications.
The Supreme Court issued a ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission overruling an earlier decision. The Court also overruled part of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission that corporations could be banned from making electioneering communications. The Court upheld the reporting and disclaimer requirements for independent expenditures and electioneering communications.
This panel was very informative, and it was interesting to hear different points of view and questions from the audience. Like many of my peers, I also appreciated Youn’s point of view the most. She addressed all the contexts we cover in class about money being speech, corporations being peoples, and elections being a free marketplace and dissected the underlying issue in each of them. For example, money is speech, but money is regulated- a double standard. Elections are free marketplaces yet certain corporations can monopolize and influence largely with their contributions. In addition, corporations are people, but people are not regulated in their expenditures while corporations are. These ideologies, and the ruling in citizens united provide them a great deal of power in elections even though a corporation within itself cannot cast a vote. Individual people vote, a corporation which is a business entity composed of many heterogeneous people should be dissected closely if propagating a single view with their financial endorsements.
Youn makes the argument that the Citizens United decision foreshadows what campaign expenditures and fundraising can look like- Corporations who have a specific agenda, say Exxon Mobil, is allowed to flood money into political campaigns and Super Pacs because the decision rendered them as “people”. Youn says the question in FEC V Citizens United is not about if the speech by Citizens United is protected, but if the first amendment prohibits the regulation of corporate political spending.
While I personally believe that corporations ARE NOT people, can’t those same rich people who run the corporations still have as much influence in elections by donating their personal wealth to super PACs or political candidates? It seems no matter what people with money can ‘dilute’ the vote/campaign of someone not as wealthy.
The conversation held by the panel really helps change my perspective once understanding how people can side with Citizens United when it came to the decision. It opens up to the idea (which really opens up with Monica) of how this limit on free speech from corporations can make you question their purpose when it comes to their treasury. The idea of the government having the power to restrict books can show you the importance of how not siding against corporations in this decision can open another floodgate that pushes us more to a totalitarian government. It’s important to let these corporations use their money as they wish for they simply don’t only contribute to campaigns and their message, but express themselves through the message too. It can be seen as them not having to identify through the title “Citizens Union”, but they can use their treasury as they please through their corporate name, with no constitutionality in question. Very important panel to observe as its different views help locate the real question at hand when this decision was made.
POLS 354
The first speaker Abrams had brought up the idea of censorship, which I didn’t think to consider in this case. I can see how it can be a form of censorship to limit and monitor how a corporation spends its own money on candidates. They should be free to do so because it exercises their freedom of speech. However, Issacharoff brings up a point that when these corporations do exercise this right, it’s almost always negative due to the corporations not being candidates running in elections. I can see the validity behind both arguments, but I think the limitations of how campaign money is spent by corporations is a matter between checks and balances, as a speaker has stated.
POLS 359
The viewpoint I appreciated the most was Youns. She touched on a lot of aspects of the case that goes beyond whether or not this is freedom of speech. One of the metaphors she spoke about that I brought up in class was whether or not corporations can be seen or considered individualistic. There are different regulations and limitations for individuals and larger bodies when it comes to campaign funding and spending. Issacharoff brung up the idea that these regulations give an unfair advantage that ultimately works in a corporation’s favor. He also explains how along with corporation campaign spending, lobbyists also play a big part in how candidates receive such an abundant amount of funding and support from big corporations.
I found this video educational and interesting as hearing each of these speakers views helped make sense of the case from differing perspectives. I will say that I do think Abrams was more the opposite from my own view on the case. He did strongly back his own points. However, I do find that Youn and Issacharof had a better view of the case. I do think Abrams talking about how cooperations are based off of those people who run and create them and each of their own views. Therefore, going off of what he said, these are representing people. I understand the point he makes here and is definitely can be a tough point to argue with. I do see a relationship between companies and the beliefs of the people who run and create them. I do think that the point of Youn and Issacharof is valid. This being that this money from these major cooperations certainly influences the opinions. I do like Youns point that this case is not about censorship as Abrams talks about. She talks about it being more about how free spending is different from free speech. I think this is important to note. However, Abrams does counter these points. Her methaphor regarding the elections being a market place is good. I think this is an important metaphor for the system in the US. She talks about this in regards to how cooperations influence those with this money. This is not regulated in our system as she mentions which allows this marketplace metaphor to take shape. I think that the “one person one Vote” point is also a great one. As these cooperations certainly have a greater amount of influence compared to just the average American. In all, I think the panel shed light on how the case could be argued from anyway which is both bad and good. As depending on which side you support.
I agree with the court’s ruling stating that the court case was far too vague. You cannot state that someone has to simply appear to not have a purpose for standing in a certain area. That is incredibly vague; how does looking at someone tell you if they are in a specific location with a good reason or not? The ordinance honestly sounded like a discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen.
After listening to the following arguments, Monica Youns provides the argument with the most logical sense and realistic outcomes. She states 3 main points which are; money is speech, corporations are people, and elections should be a market place. With regards to money being speech she states that money certainly enables speech and yet money is regulated all the time and people never say that their first amendment rights are being intruded upon when that occurs. Then, she states that if corporations are people then why are people not regulated on how they spend their money? People are allowed to spend all of their money on “frivolous” things and yet corporations always have some set of regulations on how they use their money such as not being able to use their money in a way that violates the business judgment rule. Lastly, she discussed the idea of the election being a marketplace where the person with the most money has the right to monopolize and corporations have a right to buy as much influence as they can afford. These three arguments solidified my opinion and I would have to agree with her. Despite capitalism intruding upon every sector of life, we should not allow corporations to hold more value than the people in a democracy. This democracy was built upon the foundation of “we the people. When you consider corporations as people and give them free rein their net worth inevitably makes them more powerful in a capitalistic society. Corporations should not be having a greater influence within our government than voters. Corporations cannot vote in elections, they should not be considered people with the first amendment rights as a regular human being. However, the court has ruled that they should and as a result we have corporations influencing elections, stopping necessary legislation from passing such as gun control, and controlling politicians. In a way, we have granted these corporations much more power than a voter.
I disagree with Abrams that a film denouncing a potential presidential candidate should be protected under the First Amendment. What is undisputedly protected is the right of an individual to produce and distribute a film denouncing a potential presidential candidate. Corporations are not people with natural rights and are instead legal constructs.
Youn: Does the First Amendment prohibit corporate political spending? As Youn points out 1) money is not speech, but instead funds speech and 2) we regulate money all the time. I disagree and believe that money is speech, or at the very least, there is significant and non-ignorable overlap between money and speech, especially in campaign finance. The very act of handing a dollar bill (or bank transfers of hundreds of thousands of dollars for that matter) to someone who supports a cause is symbolic speech in favor of their cause. I think the government ought not to regulate money at all so that argument also meets me with deaf ears.
Considering that the government does regulate money however, and that the corporation is a legal category created by the government, not an individual with natural rights, logically, the government ought to have the legal right to regulate corporations in any way it sees fit, including in campaign finance (A point alluded to by Issacharoff). I also agree with Issacharoff that the corruption that the Court should be looking at when it comes to corporate political contributions is not corruption of the voting populace because we’re “too stupid”, the logic relied on in Citizens United, but the quid-pro-quo exchage between elected officials and corporations.
I found the panelist’s argument very strong and convincing in their own point of view. I do agree and found Monica Youn’s argument the best in the debate, as she emphasis the negative effects on campaign election by the wealthy contribution of corporation. After the decision of United Citizen where the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are individual, and they are protected under the first amendment rights like individuals. This gave a way for the big and wealthy corporation for contributing millions and billions of $$ to the candidate they wants to support making “Money as Speech”. I do disagree with the court decision, as talked in class having wealthy corporation contributing their money to one candidate makes them more potential to win the election then their rivalry. A non-profit organization anti-citizen united wrote their opinion saying, the Supreme court has moved from “We the People” to “We the Wealthy”. Giving the “one person, one vote” authority to the big organizations, they have shown prejudice. So, will a wealthy corporation’s vote be more important than an individual’s vote? Will the candidates with rich companies to support, will gain more votes than the candidates who does not?
I agreed with panelist Youn’s statements on the relationship between money and free speech. Money does enable speech, but it is regulated in ways that “do not cause people to cry First Amendment foul.” Providing money communicates little other than one’s support for a figure or institution.
Upon watching this panel, I started wondering about public opinion on wealthy donors and elections. The article linked below states, “In recent polls, 94 percent of Americans blamed wealthy political donors for political dysfunction, and 77 percent of registered voters said that ‘reducing the influence of special interests and corruption in Washington’ was either the ‘single most’ or a ‘very important’ factor in deciding their vote for Congress.” Youn made multiple mentions of ExxonMobil, who from 2011 to 2021, spent over $119 million lobbying the federal government. Issacharoff claims that this lobbying leads to companies influencing those currently in office, which is key to these massive corporations having a large say in policy, law, and campaigns. The idea of “one person, one vote” also gets brought up a number of times. While everyone that votes has a say in what candidate they choose, ultimately there is something to be said about someone like me or anyone in our class from having a say in that decision compared to ExxonMobil who regularly spends millions of dollars trying to influence the political playing field for their personal gain. If a corporation is a person, it seems like there is a complete imbalance in who gets a say. Why is my voice smaller than ExxonMobil’s? It all comes down to money being speech.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained
Personally my opinion regarding to the cases about money being an issue in political campaigns is that it will always exist and be an existent issue, but personally I don’t think money should be allowed as a voice of free expression because like spoken in class today from a political side of view there could be better fit candidates or people that are capable of performing political ideas and decisions that do not receive the opportunity do there financial status of there campaigns. Legally speaking it is hard to argue against that due to the freedom of speech and expression protected under the first amendment. Therefor its a hard issue but personally my opinion is to avoid $$$ from politics in general as much as it can.
The topic of money campaign contributions is not new, however, will be dificult to be transpartent and say where the money is coming from. Unfortunately, campaign contributions can be compromising and expensive for those that are receiving $$$$$. In this case, having the intention of regulate the “good money” is good idea, but the people behind this action have to inpartial what I see difficult.
Decision: 5-4 supreme court struck down provisions of the McCain-Feingold Act that prohibited all corporations, both for and not-for-profit, and unions from broadcasting electioneering communications.
The reasoning of the court: Opinions by Justice Kennedy “(1) no distinction can be drawn between the 1st amendment rights of individuals and corporations in the electoral context”
and (2) “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption”
Dissenting Opinion: Justice stevens “The framers thus took it as a given that corporations could be comprehensively regulated in the service of the public welfare” basically – corporations don’t have 1st amendment rights because framers meant to give these only to American individuals
Here’s a video explanation of the case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJNnskQ1Oho
In Citizens United v. FEC, SCOTUS held that corporations are people and removed reasonable campaign contribution limits. SCOTUS struck down provisions of the McCain Feingold Act that prohibited all corporations from being donors on campaigns. There were 2 reasons for this: (1) there is no different between the rights of individuals and corporations in an electoral context based on the 1st amendment and free speech and (2) any independent expenditures, even from corporations, does not necessarily mean there is corruption. The court used the 1st amendment and free speech as basis of this ruling and “maintained that political speech is indispensable to a democracy, which is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation.” The ruling of this case allows wealthy corporations, rich donors, and special interests to use dark money to influence and possibly even change the course of elections. I think it’s a bit odd that the rights of individuals are being extended to big corporations. How are they even remotely similar? It just doesn’t make any sense because they have rules they need to follow but the government constantly lets them get away with breaking those rules and not following them.
Citizens United essentially gave dark money and Super PACs the green light to dominate and take over the whole election process. In the past couple of decades, the election process has greatly shifted from who has the best policies and political stances in core issues to who has the most money. I dread election years because all we see is misinformation being spread through advertisements (which are everywhere. I can’t watch Youtube, I can’t watch the news, I can’t do anything without being overloaded with election information). Giving corporations full first amendment rights has made elections worth billions more than they once were and it’s really telling of American society as a whole. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are homeless and a good amount of citizens live below the poverty line, the government is always talking about how they do not have money to spend yet there are corporations with GDPs worth more than a lot of smaller country’s GDPs and they’re slowly taking over. This panel was interesting because it really shows the multifaceted views that exist within our society. There are those who are so far removed from our society that they think this is a good thing (Abrams) and there are the few who know that this will have detrimental effects on who goes on to win and dominate American politics for decades to come.
The idea of this ruling would be stronger if not uprooted by the Hobby Lobby v Burwell ruling. I am not sure how the court understand money provided in sums that the average voting individual could never match are considered to be first amendment rights. Lobbying is one thing because it does not necessarily guarantee power to politicians, but the BCRA puts a check on what kinds of funds can be used where in political campaigns and elections. If they are having to make all these extra rules to ensure little confusion of campaign spending, perhaps they may have found it best to not enter into legal jurisprudence the value of money over the dilution of an individual’s vote. The one man, one vote doctrine is obliterated by this ruling because an individual could never amount to the financial impact that unions and corporations (which are groups of individuals, not just one) have on electoral politics.
The case Citizens United vs FEC is a very controversial one due to the various interpretations it can be held to. Panelist Abrams viewed the ruling as a victory in the protection of the freedom of speech. He specifies that political speech is one that is the most protected under the 1st amendment, and it should be protected at all costs. In juxtaposition, panelist Youn explains that this is not a censorship case, rather it is an establishment of human rights upon corporations who have more money and sway than the majority of individual voters. Youn suggests that the accuracy of “one person, one vote” is threatened by allowing corporations to engage large sums of money towards or against a candidate with no electoral regulation. Speech is money, and the ruling gives the richest people/corporations the loudest voice.
The centrist opinion comes from Issacharoff who mostly disagrees with the ability that Citizens United v FEC gives to politicians to not be held accountable for their shady campaign management and advertisements. Candidates can receive support from big money corporations without the fear of being held accountable, because the corporation has it’s own right to free speech, regardless whether or not the candidate agrees with the actions being done to support their campaign.
Another huge thing I noticed from the panelist is while Youn (the only woman on the panel) was speaking, Friedman continuously made comments to Issacharoff. He did not do this when any other panelist was speaking. It was utterly noticeable that those actions were only being made during panelist Youn’s opinion, and it was extremely rude.
Most Americans disagree on the extent to which political campaign fundraising and spending should be imposed by law. This case, on either hand, isn’t about making direct contributions to candidates. Instead, this case is about whether and how businesses and other groups can spend their own money to support a candidate’s election or defeat. Citizens United was authorized to appeal the verdict directly to the United States Supreme Court under a special provision in the which it did. Citizens United sought that the Supreme Court to rule on whether a feature length film was subjected to the BCRA’s regulations and whether the statute infringed on the organization’s First Amendment right to engage in political speech.Because the Constitution was written for We the People and to protect individual liberty rather than corporate liberties, the First Amendment does not apply to corporations. The BCRA allows corporations to speak and spend money on elections in different ways. The law authorizes companies and labor unions to form Political Action Committees Political action committees and use the PACs to pay commercials.
I agree that this case is one of the most controversial cases that went through the U.S. Supreme Court. You think that our vote matters, and that there is no way that anyone could influence our political system. But many of us agree that ruling is disturbing, and if more big corporations were to influence our political system, then there will be more corruption in our government. President Obama commenting on these issues, makes you believe that if nothing changes the whole republic can fail.
I think it’s really interesting to see who differently the two sides view the question posed in Citizens United v. FEC. Abrams stated that he believed the question was simply one of free speech and whether Citizens United was being censored or not. At face value, perhaps, yes, this is a case of censorship. But truly, the question is not that of censorship based on the content of speech; it is whether, as a democratic nation that should work to uphold the equality of all citizens, we can allow for unlimited corporate political spending. Monica Youn explains that the problem is not responsible corporations “flogging the system with money,” but rather the problem is the “lifting of the safeguards” that protect our electorate and our elections from being bought out by corporations. Issacharoff puts the arguments of Abrams and Youn face to face. He states that the Citizens United case creates a problem with two conflicting ideas — the idea of equality of citizens vs. the liberty tradition and the distrust of government. Abrahams argument ultimately stems from this distrust of government and the idea that the main goal of the BCRA was to censor corporations. Meanwhile, Youn believes that the unaccountability of groups like Citizens United threatens the democratic principles of our nation and that one person means one vote. Issacharoff ultimately feels though that the outcome of Citizens United creates a regulatory issue. Because money going towards parties and candidates is so highly regulated, money flows to where there is not regulation — groups like Citizens United. Unlike candidates, these corporations are not accountable for where they get their funding. Because of this, these groups are able to dominate politics and “poison the political atmosphere” because all they run is hate ads.
While the panelists had opposing viewpoints, I think that rather than disagree on the decisions as a whole, there was a split in the panelists on who focused on a different aspect of the ruling. Abrams focused on his opinion that the case was about censorship of free speech, and consistently brought the facts and conversation back to his point. Youn and Issacharof held their stance that the ruling was a corrupt influence on politics, and expanded upon that on their own and in their arguments against Abrams. Youn pointed out the flaws in Abrams’s arguments by asserting that free speech can not be equated to free spending by corporations and expanded upon the dangers of money in politics Issacharof’s points had more to do with the details of corporations and how they cannot be considered individuals, therefore ineligible to be part of the “one person, one vote” principle.
In Citizens United v. FEC, the Court held that spending for political purposes is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment. As a result, corporations or “entities” cannot be prohibited from spending in ways that can have political influence. Although I find it important to keep speech as broadly protected as possible, the decision in this case frustrates me because of the immense difference in political influence corporations can have in comparison to individuals based on the vast amounts they are able to spend on political messaging. Overall, the panel brought up compelling points from a variety of perspectives on the idea of political spending as speech and the role corporations have in influencing politics/democracy. Although Abrams set the basis for the panel by going over the facts of the case, he also included his personal support for the protection of political spending of corporations as speech protected by the First Amendment. However, Youn’s assertions about the role of corporations as people and of spending as speech clearly demonstrated my own personal issues with the Court’s decision in this case. According to Youn, money makes speech possible, but isn’t speech in and of itself. It’s also important to think about how political spending is disclosed and what relationship really exists between corporations and our democracy and the regulations that exist surrounding this spending.
I think a common theme throughout the panel was that this was a very controversial case. I think Abrams, in summarizing the case and its historical context, very strategically emphasizes the idea that political speech should be protected and utilizes his experience to defend this perspective. I really liked how Youn completely counters the points that Abrams has made in regards to Citizens United and talked about the “slight of hand” of the Court and how the case was not necessarily freedom of speech but freedom of money and the idea that elections could be monopolized. She calls out the fact that the Court based their decision on a subjective opinion rather than the facts and Kennedy’s opinion being one of advocacy over judicial reasoning. I appreciate her calling out the Court. Going off of Issacharoff, I find it interesting the way he summarized the case compared to Abrams, Abrams stuck to the facts while Issacharoff talked more about the democratic tradition vs. the liberty tradition and how they conflict within the case. He talks more about the abstract concepts within the case and the historical effects, especially with money going unregulated to candidates. I think that Abrams sticks to facts of the case because he is able to utilize buzz words such as “censorship” and “free speech” to strengthen his argument and doesn’t have to address the implications of the ruling. Similar to what Issacharoff said about the public being so oversaturated with political arguments and analysis that they are unable to process everything going on, I think Abrams’ emphasis on the facts was a very strategic move on his part. Nevertheless, it was very interesting to think about the case through the facts and the abstract implications of the case. I think that is the reason that makes Citizens United such a controversial case because as we learned in class, while these historical implications are important, it is if you can argue the case and the straightforward cause and effect relationship is what I thought led to the ruling of the case and the removal of most restrictions on corporate and union expenditures. With that said, if one does look back through these more abstract concepts and metaphors such as money is speech and elections are a marketplace, we can find holes within the ruling of the case. Thus, I think this panel was so important to show the dichotomy between the facts presented by the Court opinion and the overall analysis of the impact of the ruling as well as the subjectiveness behind it. As for the ruling, I do not agree with it and I think it is a very dangerous decision looking at the power money holds within society. It allots a lot of power to certain groups and provides a straight path to utilize those powers to impact campaigns. I also just overall don’t believe that corporations should be considered on the same level or category as individual people.
The case, no matter how you think about it, was a landmark case that allowed for much more leeway for people and groups to spend money in political contributions as a whole. It did so by overturning rulings that allowed for the government, to a certain extent, to regulate political expenditures of corporations under the rationale that said restrictions were a violation of free speech, that corporations essentially are people when it comes to political expenditures, and throwing away the antidistortion rationale under the idea it was a aberration from the norm. In my view, the decision was a grave error that, by making money essentially a form of speech when it really isn’t, reaches its conclusion in opening the doors for nigh on unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns.
As for the panel itself, I do feel that it was an interesting one that I feel that presented a balance of opinions. Overall, I feel that I would have to side against Abrams in the panel overall. While he certainly talks a lot about the history of campaign spending in the Court and how the pre-Citizens United cases all had strong dissents, first off, Citizens United had strong dissents and, secondly, this history doesn’t manner in determining what is and isn’t constitutional in a case focused entirely on overthrowing precedent. He doesn’t really give much of a convincing argument in his side besides the idea that corporations not being able to spend money on campaigns in whatever way they like amounts to a free speech abridgment and his solutions, a shareholders’ protection bill and corporations not being united on certain issues, I don’t feel are sufficient to solve the issue of corporate money pouring into races. While Issacharof did bring up some good points in the whole thing about unlimited money corrupting politics through swamping people in the airways, I feel that Youn articulated these ideas the best that the case isn’t a case about speech (the rationale of the majority). I felt this panel was entertaining but I certainly did pick a side in the case as a whole.
The outcome of this case and it’s effects on American politics are pronounced and undeniable, and the court has created a large inequality in electoral politics as a result. I’m interested in the anecdote above where it’s mentioned that it’s the first time in American politics that foreign corporations are able to influence foreign elections. However, I feel as if this is an avenue for foreign intervention that’s rarely discussed nowadays, whereas the media and other parties have been more concerned with reports of hacking and other methods of interference. Providing the ability for foreign corporations to participate under the cover of dark money provides for even more amounts of vote dilution for the American voter, where their thoughts are now outweighed not only by the influence of domestic corporate spending, but foreign corporate spending at the same time.
This is the case I point to when I’m having a conversation with someone and the topic of corruption in politics comes up. The decision in this case greatly loosened the regulations on corporate spending in politics and has in my opinion made the country far worse because of it. I agree with Issacharoff that this decision has lead to the poisoning of our political atmosphere. One glaring example of this off the top of my head would be Sen. Sinema who campaigned on policies such as medicare for all and lower prescription drug prices to get elected into office and now after a few years in congress is sternly against such policies. What changed in a few short years? Well if you look at her biggest campaign donors it includes health insurance and Pharmaceutical companies who the policies she campaigned on would greatly effect. But with a few checks worth a couple million dollars they effectively killed her support for policies that could cost them billions. What is to stop large corporations from doing this anytime there might be a bill that could hurt their profit margins? The answer is nothing after this ruling. I recognize that his ruling also had benefits for other organizations like Unions, but I think this helps corporations far more than anyone else since they have the most capital to throw around on political lobbying.
As the Court ruled in Citizens United that corporate are allowed to spend as much as they want on political campaigns, I do not understand then what really “one person, one vote” means here because corporates money can affect millions of voters. this decision should be condemned as monopolization of politic environment.
I find this case to be interesting, though “disturbing” as Youn said.
It’s true what Issacharoff said at the beginning of his statement, that there is an assumption that the opinion of a corporation could have the power to sway the public because they’re “so stupid” that they can’t form their own opinions. However, it’s been proven that people’s opinions can in fact be swayed by the media. People internalize ideas and repetitive information, that’s human psychology. It’s also true that many people DON’T study candidates thoroughly and instead get their information from the media, especially when many are so busy working or are so tired from their day to day lives (as a result of corporate exploitation) that the effort it takes to stay on top of politics is simply too much.
The media has immense power to spread information and that power is leveraged by money. There was much concern during the 2016 election as to whether or not Russia was interfering with American federal elections through a digital campaign. The concern was exactly because of the fact that people are significantly influenced by exposure to ideas through repetition. So, the argument that the opinion of a corporation wouldn’t have sway in the way that many fear is null, especially when it’s corporate funding that made it possible for the ad to consistently reach such a large audience for an extended period of time.
Viewing this case as simply one of censorship is limited. It was a dangerous decision and granted corporations far too much power, and not just in the case of elections. Abrams mentioned that if we should be concerned about the power of corporations then other moves could be made to regulate it. The problem with that is that there were no proposed regulations to ensure that the Supreme Court decision wouldn’t open the door to corporate control in various other sociopolitical spheres.
Another very important point that all four speakers failed to mention is that this is not a two party system. Unfortunately, corporate interest will likely lean right in most cases which gives the party more financial leverage. This is especially true moving forward today with the democratic party adopting more socialist ideals. Issachroff stated that both parties are similarly situated when it comes to party finances, just a reiteration that the value of the various other parties is so small that they aren’t even worth mentioning.
The Justices fixated on the First Amendment, neglecting to give as much attention to the impact of corporate spending in political goings on as it deserved. At it’s root, the case granted personhood to corporate ORGANIZATIONS by granting them rights guaranteed by the Constitution, much like in the Hobby Lobby case surrounding abortion. The interest of a corporation will always be in maximizing profits, which is most often contrary to the interests of the people. They are a threat to human rights and should be more strictly regulated rather than liberated. Corporations are not people nor should they be treated as such.
“a dangerous decision ” why and how is it dangerous? Also, please elaborate on the “democratic party adopting more socialist ideals.”
Under Reagan’s presidency an arguably extremist form of Capitalism emerged, that being Neoliberalism. Neoliberal Capitalism functions under the assumption that the market will regulate itself and that the people who participate in it will benefit should they participate effectively. It’s essentially rooted in Adam Smith’s idealistic Trickle Down Theory. It has many negative ideological impacts, one being the belief that the poverty is a condition that one brings upon themselves. That extends to other social issues nationally such as addiction, racial/gendered violence, etc., and international ones such as debt-bondage and various forms of forced labor (ex. Outsourcing: Maquiladores/The Nike Model). This is a product of Neoliberalism’s practice of increased privatization, lowered government regulation of the means of production (corporations), and support of less federal interference in cases of social justice. If markets can regulate themselves then the people can too right? Or maybe it’s the markets that will regulate people?..
Corporations have proven not to have the best interests of their laborers in mind and this is a democracy made up of the people, those of whom are largely marginalized and have very little power to advocate for themselves. This class as well as your 356 class have taught me much about how the legal system reflects this truth. It is also true that money plays a large role in how politics function in this country. So, if a corporation has the power of money as well as certain rights granted to citizens by the constitution, while even the citizens of this country are often unable to exercise those rights, then what does it mean for us?
I think that “socialist ideals” are being redefined by Americans. Maybe ideas like raising taxes on corporations, increasing accessibility to healthcare, education, and public housing aren’t really socialist at all, rather that they’re moving away from neoliberalism and so seem like an anti-capitalist agenda. After the Red Scare the word Communism was heavy with fear and criticism, the word socialism came in as a close second. That being the case, many people in the US seem to view it as less threatening as it once was which I don’t view as a bad thing. If the widespread recognition that wealth does not in fact trickle down amounts to policies labelled Socialist then so be it. Maybe that’s exactly what we need.
Also perfect song! It gave me a much needed smile.
This panel was actually a lot more interesting that I anticipated and I especially loved Youn’s remarks and honestly she dominated the whole panel especially being the only woman of color on a panel of all white men. I think the most important point that was made was when Youn said, “This is an important case because it poses a confrontation between the two major constitutional traditions of the 21st century (one person one vote and the liberty tradition (which is highly distrustful bc it gives the court the power to shape ideals))” and how essentially, when you overregulate in one domaine, money will flow to the unregulated peripherals. It explains a lot on how this furthers the agendas of extremists groups and why this is harmful.
see comment below by Pres Harris that it also allows Unions to spend, not just “extremists groups.” how do you respond
Abram’s insistence on backing the majority opinion in Citzens United vs FEC relies almost solely on ignoring the perfectly valid points that Youn and Issacharoff bring up, that should have at least been addressed in depth. While a great many in this class have focused their attention on Youn’s stance that the regulation of money is not the regulation of speech, since money is often times regulated in similar ways that do not impose on the 1st Amendment, (a point that I support, but given the discussion already on it, I will gloss over), it is Issacharoff’s point about the equality of citizens that piques my interest. “One person, one vote” may be relatively young, but it ensures that there is a unity of purpose behind the speech (I’m using the phrase here as a rhetorical device, not as it refers to the Reconstruction Amendments) When I say something, when Lyles says something, when anyone says anything and expresses an idea, you can be certain that every person involved in that particular instance of speech is unanimous in the decision to express that idea, because the grand total here is 1. Corporations are made of many different people, with conflicting personal opinions who all contribute to the money that corporations spend to express ideas. It would be as if, against my will, my employer said that not only him, but every person in the corporation backs this idea, using the wealth we have produced to give the expression force. While corporate idealists may think the obvious solution here would be to simply not to work for corporations that support views contrary to your own personal beliefs, that is an option that is simply unavailable to a great many people in the U.S. They cannot literally vote, but corporations can appropriate the voice of the people they employ without consent, giving them a weight that no one person can ever hope to achieve and swaying elections in ways that no one person could ever do, giving those who control them additional powers over speech that no one else has, and therefore cannot be considered equal.
interesting comment, a little different than the rest. thanks. maybe a topic for a law review article one day
Perhaps the opinion of a corporate body should reflect the needs and values of it’s employees. I wonder how elections would be swayed then and whether the ruling would have been the same.
The significance of this case is that it affirms that corporate speech exists and that it can be used in the political arena without undue burden such as limiting independent expenditures and when and how often politcal advertisements can be broadcasted. Justice Stevens’ dissenting opinion discussed that this idea of corporate personhood does not fall within the Framer’s view on corporations. He states that they are not members of society and that the government has a compelling interest to curb the flow of money from special interests during local and national elections. However, the majority opinion on this case saw political speech as a cornerstone of democracy and should not be abridged just because it comes from a corporation.
The ruling in Citizens United v. FEC expanded the influence that corporations can have on politics. The three panelist interpret the ruling quite differently as shown in the video. Abrams argues that the initial rule acted as a sort of censorship of the first amendment’s free speech. He states that there are several other ways that society can reduce the influence/ power of corporations on politics without limiting its free speech. A few he provided were increasing tax, limiting the size of the corporation or handling share holders. Moreover, panelist Issacharoff expresses his policy concern with the overflow of money within a corporation due to the decision of this case. Corporations are now free to donate any amount of money to a candidate, but the candidate is not held accountable from where exactly they received this money. Issacharoff believes that this results in the “poisoning” of the “political atmosphere” due to unnecessary interference of third party groups (i.e. corporations). Lastly, panelist Youn’s interpretation of the case focuses on the question if the first amendment forbids the regulation on corporate political spending. Youn states that she does not agree with Justice Kennedy’s interpretation that this case is regarding censorship. Rather, she points out that the court’s “fantasy vision of censorship” fails to consider when special interest groups dominate politics. All in all, I greatly enjoyed listening to 3 entirely different viewpoints regarding the decision of this case. It was interesting to read beyond the reasoning of it and understand its immediate influence in politics/ society.
Abram explains why the Citizens United documentary’s discourse is political speech and hence protected by the first amendment. Abrams continues to argue that corporate money and donations are forms of expression. Youn takes the opposite approach, arguing that corporate spending, or money for that matter, is not free speech. She makes the argument that money is not speech, which seems self-evident given the restrictions on how money may be used in elections. Because of the corrupting impact money may have, even individuals are limited in how much they can give directly to a politician. Even if donations influence their capacity to help get their message out through their candidate, this is not deemed restricting a person’s speech.
The fact that powerful, wealthy corporations are viewed as ordinary citizens does not indicate equally/ equity within the system of government. Corporations, in my opinion, are standard organizations that are no longer responsible to voters and are now permitted to make expenditures that benefit them alone collectively. The matter should not have been judged merely on the basis of the first amendment, which, although undoubtedly a right that should not be denied to anybody, does not take into account the fact that those with money will always have more power to influence government than the ordinary person. As a result, now that the law has been passed, we must work harder to deal with it before companies are much more involved, disrupting the system of governance
I really enjoyed some of the ideas shared in the panel especially the way Youn gave a new understanding of the entire case of citizens united and the concept of money as speech. She mentioned how citizens united is not case about censorship but a case about regulating money and corporate power over democracy. Youn mentioned how money should be looked as an enabler of speech and not necessarily as speech itself, this way we can use this train of thought when deciding cases like citizens united where the real questions should focus on the regulation of money and corporate power instead of whether or not corporations enjoy the same freedom of speech as individuals.
Other ideas shared in the panel like how disclosure of corporate spending in the political process is necessary but not sufficient are also very important when discussing cases involving the interactions of corporate money and the government. Donations and PACS are probably the smallest of these interactions and I think that when talking about money as speech we should also look at lobbying and how easily it is for money to corrupt the system.
I appreciate that the panel was made up of an individual who was for the Citizens United ruling, one against, and a third who was sort of in the middle. Abrams pushed the idea that we should all be concerned about the fact that 4 justices dissented because free speech should not be limited [even to corporations]. He criticized Youn’s argument that the movie could have been shown in a theater or have been paid for by a PAC. He pretty much indicates her argument is BS because it puts limits on first amendment rights. I think his criticism is flawed. There are other regulations and limitations put on 1st amendment free speech rights such as when and where porn can be shown. He gives examples of how money in politics could be regulated without violating free speech rights but Youn is quick to point out that because money is now speech, it would be difficult for his examples to formulate. Youn emphasizes the idea that what should count in politics is how many votes a candidate can get, not how much money is spent. She includes her reasoning for questioning Kennedy’s opinion indicating he pretended the case was about content censorship when it was not. She indicates that it would have been perfectly legal to release the movie in DVD form or in a theater yet Citizens United chose to put it out in such a way that it was a test case for election law. Her substitution of “speech” with “unlimited corporate spending” shined a light on the troubling opinion issued by Kennedy.
Citizens United V. FEC (2010) was a very controversial landmark decision during president Obama term, many people disapprove of it from both parties because it eliminated many regulations and cap on corporations to spend on a political campaign or office. In the panel in NYU discussing about citizen united case, each member brought some good points about the decision. Mr. Abrams who is pro-1st amendment defended against the case that corporations are people too and by making a cap on those corporations your essentially limiting their voices to be heard. He also states that “is this censorship or not” which in my opinion brings up a good point because your censoring corporations who are run by people to be censored to a certain extend. Youn and Issacharoft in my opinion were in the side that corporations would corrupt politicians because at the end of the day money makes anything happen. They mentioned a movie that was release against Hillary Clinton in 2008 because the producers assumed she would be the parties nominee and it was brought up as is this free speech and is money considered as free speech, Abrams stated that is still free speech because is somebody opinion on someone.
In conclusion I’m still against the decision on citizens united because in my opinion it makes the politician or campaign be heavily dependent on the money instead of the voters which is why there’s a lot of distrust between the people and government, however after this panel I also understand why the Supreme Court made the decision because corporations also have first amendments rights to spend there money on a issue or campaign they want to focus on.
This case is a landmark case because of its removal of most restrictions on corporate and union expenditures. The Court found that political spending is a form of protected speech and that corporations and unions cannot be prevented from spending money to support or criticize candidates in American elections. It is controversial for several reasons, mainly having to do with financial corruption among the political system. Many, including myself, find that corporations should not have the same first amendment rights as individuals and that election integrity decreases as a result of the outcome of the case. President Obama’s 2010 State of the Union Address interestingly points out his concern over foreign corporations and their influences on American elections. This dramatic moment is one of many examples of how this case highlights the intersection between law and politics.
With this in mind, I enjoyed the panel because of the various perspectives offered. After Abrams gave a summary of the case and its effects to the audience, he showed his support for corporations’ first amendment rights. Youn’s response was really interesting. She highlighted that the case is not about whether the speech is protected. Rather, she explained that the “distinction between regulation of money and regulation of speech” is blurred through the decision. Money is speech, corporations are people, and elections should be a marketplace. As she tackled those three metaphors in the context of the case, I began to see the decision as more faulty than before. She emphasizes again that the case is not about censorship. Her exercise where she replaces “free speech” with “unlimited corporate political spending” within Justice Kennedy’s opinion shows how free speech is used as a tool to deregulate campaign financing. Issacharoff’s points were valuable, but I particularly like Youn’s response because it looked past a lot of the facial language in the Court’s opinions and got into how money, power, the law, and politics are intertwined.
Citizens United v. FEC is a landmark and controversial case that lifted the restrictions on independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations based on the free speech clause of the First Amendment. The Court applied strict scrutiny as the case involved a burden on political speech, and found the government’s compelling interest in the form of an antidistortion interest established in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce was not enough. The goal of antidistortion was to prevent “the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas.’ Justice Kennedy criticized the rationale and claimed it would produce the consequence that Congress could ban political speech of media corporations.
The response to the Court’s ruling included backlash from both sides of the political aisle and support from Senator Mitch McConnell (the plaintiff in McConnell v. FEC) and by the ACLU for protecting the First Amendment. In terms of the opposition, there have been calls for a constitutional amendment that would reverse the ruling of Citizens United, including Senator Bernie Sanders. As Senator Sanders puts it, the “Saving American Democracy Act,” would “make clear that corporations are not entitled to the same constitutional rights as people and that corporations may be regulated by Congress and state legislatures. It also would preserve the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press. It would incorporate a century-old ban on corporate campaign donations to candidates, and establish broad authority for Congress and states to regulate spending in elections.”
It has been 11 years since the decision and the effects of it are starting to appear more clearly. Public Citizen published its report on the aftermath of Citizens United in January 2020 (https://www.citizen.org/article/ten-years-after-citizens-united/) It includes opening up a pathway for foreign entities to influence elections, which can be difficult to determine because ghost corporations, an increase in negative ads, and the increase of collaborations between candidates and political parties and outside entities.
The panel on Citizens United v. FEC was very interesting. A point that stood out to me is one made by both Ms. Yuan and Mr. Issacharoff and that is the “one person, one vote” principle in context with this case. I hadn’t thought about the principle in conjunction with Citizens United, but once they started to flesh out the idea, I understood the connection. Yuan brings it up when she talked about the three metaphors the decision creates, which included (1) money is speech, (2) corporations are people, and (3) elections should be a marketplace. The third point refers to the fact that “the person with the most money has the constitutional right to monopolize and a corporation has the right to buy as much influence as it can afford.” She criticizes this idea because the country defines itself to be a democracy under the “one person, one vote” principle, and regulations allow voters to be at the forefront and not the idea of how much money a candidate is spending. Issacharoff brings up the principle under his three points about the decision, which Haneen has highlighted below. His second point involves the idea that the case goes beyond campaign financing and it poses a confrontation between the two constitutional traditions of the 21st century, which are equality of citizens and liberty tradition, which is highly distrusting of government. The “one person, one vote” principle falls under the first tradition and he highlights how “it has been a commitment of our democracy” for about half a century, which is relatively new, and that it can come into play because the case doesn’t stop with the concept of campaign financing or the film and the First Amendment.
Another point I found interesting from the panel is the idea that this case is about censorship. Yuan quotes directly from Justice Kennedy’s opinion and states “he is pretending this case is about censorship and this is not a case about censorship.” She challenges Citizens United’s claim that they weren’t able to put the film on video-on-demand by proposing they could’ve released it in another matter such as through DVD or on theaters. This way, the movie would still reach the public in a way that would not interfere with the prohibition of electioneering communication in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. Mr. Abrams responds to this by going back to the facts that brought this case to the Supreme Court, “they make a movie criticizing Hillary Clinton and it is a crime to put it on television, that’s what the law made it.” He does not see “seeing it somewhere else or doing something else” as an answer to a First Amendment challenge. Abrams calls the case a classic, yet unusual case of “pure censorship” because the legislative intent did not matter (as of now) and it is the impact which is what the Court decided on and thus falls in line with the liberty tradition Isaacharoff pointed out in his third idea.
Here, the panel held a discussion of the potential consequences after Citizens United was ruled and the opinion given by former Justice Kennedy. Each panelist gave their interpretation of the situation and some of their main concerns with this case. Abrams gives the brief of the case and then his interpretation which is to say that Citizens United is another 1st amendment case whose ruling will have potentially harmful consequences. Also, and respectfully so, Abram defends why the speech at the question by the Citizens United documentary is political speech and thus protected by the first amendment. Youn takes the opposite approach and argues how expenditures by corporations, or money for that matter, is no free speech. The 1st amendment does not pivot to corporate spending and thus is not included under it. If it was, then our right to self-governance, along with equality, would be jeopardized. I found her statement of how if money itself is already being regulated by the government, then is our speech also always being regulated? The last speaker Issacharoff writes how there are two traditions that collided with each other in this case. This was the “one person, one vote” doctrine from Reynolds and the fact we as Americans have a distrust in government or any kind of centralized control of authority. As such, he states the law stands in the worst way possible after this case and now states political candidates have no accountability or responsibility to be weary or stay alert of where they are receiving their donations from. I found it amusing when he said that corporations have no party allegiance, but only case if a candidate can be bought out during lobby time.
I believe this case definitely made it harder for the states themselves to determine how campaign expenditures from non-citizens but from corporations may be regulated. I can agree with Issacharoff in the dangers of this case but I have to agree with Abrams that money from corporations is still considered free speech. I do believe there could be a danger in making an exception for the first amendment and treating all corporations and unions as being corrupt and not representative of anything people may agree with. Not all corporations and unions are built the same or built on the same values. However, what is to be done for the cases were corporation money is being used to undermine the integrity of elections is more complicated. Perhaps more laws encourage transparency in the way lobbying is conducted? Either way, this case is very much political and was done with an agenda in mind as Abrams said during Q&A I believe near the end of the video.
Citizens United was an important case for many reasons, but the most important part was allowing for companies to act as if they were individuals with the same resources and voice. This effectively allowed organizations to fund as much as they felt needed towards political campaigns. We would assume we want the major stakeholders in elections to be the citizens donating and voting but this allows for a large power and influence on elections to be placed on our corporations.
When we first went over the case, I initially stood against the ruling, claiming that corporations shouldn’t be protected as if they were an average individual. Though, after listening to this panel, I am not so sure I stand by my original opinion, the first speaker Abrams brings out some good points, by contradicting his components. Youn stating the money isn’t speech, and Issacharoff stating that the issue is that a candidate nor an official can be held accountable if pacs and corporations are able to run free with ads regardless of the effect the ads can potentially cause. Abrams stands by his argument that money from corporations and donations are a form of speech. Corporations make money, and as owners of their money they can spend and/or donate as they please, as with the average individual. Who’s to say how and where to rightfully spend your money? In the particular case of Citizens United, the cooperation clearly did not want to Clinton to be president and gave their opinion, and it did not cause anyone physical harm and it did not disturb the public peace, it was a form of speech, speech presenting their political views, speech that U.S. citizens have and is protected by the First Amendment. I wonder if the movie was made in favor of Hilary Clinton, would the same conflict of opposition towards cooperations arise? If the movie was about being in favor of politicians of a particular religion, would there be an issue too, for example. However, what I know for certain is that regardless of where the money was spent, it is a form of speech, speech in favor of the particular organization that shares the same belief as the corporation and/or individual.
I agree that this is a very controversial case. The fact that big wealthy corporations are considered average people is not equal representation. I believe corporations are single issue groups, not accountable to voters, that are now given the right to engage in expenditures that are beneficial only to them collectively. It was wrong that the case was only reviewed under the first amendment which, although is unarguably a right and should not be denied to anybody, those with money will have more power than the average individual to influence government and that will always be the case. Therefore now that the law is passed, we need to make a bigger effort to deal with it before shareholders engage more and grow to a point where we can’t do anything.
Very strategically, speaker Abrams keeps bringing the discussion back to the original facts and ideas of the case. He spends much time explaining who the case is about. Then he dives into why this is limiting or censoring free protected speech. He will not give up on this idea that Corporate money and donations are in fact speech. Even after his fellow panel members give arguments in opposition and providing compelling dissenting option, Abrams brings it back to censor ship. He spends time on this idea of how Corporations are constructed and makes a very compelling point. He makes an argument about how corporations are designed. Are they not modeled after the owners and share holders beliefs and values? The real world example I would provide would include an environmentally friendly corporation. In fact, the largest solar panel corporation in the US. When that person began their company on sustainability and environmental friendliness, were they not doing so in line with their morals and beliefs. When the same corporation then donates to Joe Bidens Build Back Better agenda, (that includes countless environmental protections) are they not then using money and campaign contribution for some greater message or speech? Or even political belief? And shouldn’t that be protect regardless of political opinion? To take it one step further, what is corporate charity? When a corporation donates money to charity, are they not speaking on behalf of their beliefs? Different companies take different initiatives and charity steps, is that not speech?
As Kennedy mentions, we have a tradition of more speech, not less. Especially in politics. Further more, we hear this idea that giant campaign contributions are bad. How can we simply come to the conclusion that all corporate spending and speech is somehow bad or ridden with bad intent. While on the other hand our own campaign contribution is pure and just. All money from corporation is corrupt? If so, how did mike Bloomberg receive and spent nearly 1billion dollars without polling close to 10%. I believe Abrams is completely correct in his analysis and to bring it back to the actors of the case. I want to be clear, campaign contribution is no free for all. Often, people donate a-lot of money to politics and expect something in return and even receive that something. We should be able to point out clear cases of quid pro quo and prosecute it. Instead of attributing all contributions as bad and not protected speech. As Abrams points at the end of his conversation, we should be able to point out the problem, mitigate it in some better way than by limiting some ones protected speech.
Great comments. You end by stating “some better way than by limiting some ones protected speech.” Who is the someone here? Someone or something?
I find your comment great because you bring up a flaw to our attention which is our habit to label all corporate spending as being corrupt. Not all corporations are the same and I am sure there are some built-on values that would speak or resonate with some of us here. Instead, we ought to look at how this money is being used and for what purpose. The intention should matter here and I believe money is not the only way to win elections. I believe there are other factors involved that also greatly determine how successful a candidate will be.
First off, I find President Obama’s remarks at his State of the Union Address to be very ironic. In 2008, two years before the Citizen’s United Case, Obama raised more money from Wall Street through the Democratic National Committee and his campaign account than any politician in American history. However, I understand that while wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups such as those in Wall Street have always had a vast influence in elections, that influence has dramatically expanded since the Citizens United decision, as discussed in the NYU forum. In the Court’s majority opinion, they ruled limiting “independent political spending” from corporations and other groups violates the First Amendment right to free speech. They declared that independent spending cannot be corrupt and that the spending would be transparent which has proven to be far from the truth today.
One of the most significant and detrimental outcomes of the case has been the creation of super PACs, as they are not bound by spending limits on what they can collect or spend. Super PACs are “independent expenditure-only political committees that may receive unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor unions and other political action committees for the purpose of financing independent expenditures and other independent political activity.” Additionally, an election system that is skewed heavily toward wealthy donors holds up racial bias and reinforces the yawning racial wealth gap which is more prevalent than ever in this country today. All things considered, Citizens United was one of the most detrimental cases to our “democracy.”
Something that stood out to me from the panel which helped me to better understand this case was Mr. Issacharoff’s 3 takeaway points. Those are; 1. there was no settled law before Citizens United. For the past 15 years (from 2010), the Court continuously ruled to overturn Buckley v. Valeo. The case only lasts because “they wanted to push it in different directions.” So, Issacharoff argues that there was never a settled law prior to this case.
2. This case is extremely significant and goes beyond campaign financing. It brings in questions of “one person, one vote” which we discussed in class, and the liberty tradition which is highly distrusting of government and giving state the power over ideas. This case really highlights how these two traditions which are essential to the liberal ethos of this country come into conflict.
3. Where the law stands after Citizens United is “the worst possible place for it.” There is a grave policy and regulatory concern which emerges. When you over-regulate in one domain, money will flow to the unregulated peripheries. In Citizens United, this means that we have found over and over that the only place we can regulate $ is by going to the candidates and the parties. 527s, PACs, and other tertiary groups which are usually extremist, single issue, groups that poison the political atmosphere. Now, unions and corporations are free to engage in Independent expenditures and do not have to be held accountable.
527s, PACs, and other tertiary groups which are usually extremist, single issue, groups that poison the political atmosphere emerged as a result of this case**
excellent summary of points
The Citizens United case can be viewed as the most controversial of 21st century because it lifted campaign contributions. In addition, the panel before referring to other cases that were similar to this one where the Court ruled that the corporations had first amendment rights. Therefore, a company’s political speech cannot be regulated by any state or federal government. In so many words, this opened the door for companies invest in political campaigns and support a nominee for office. This will lead to more corruption in politics.
In Citizens United v FEC, the Supreme Court essentially affirmed that corporations should be treated as people and removed reasonable limits to funding campaigns. This does not sit right with me. It essentially just lets wealthy corporations control/influence elections more than the average person, which should be the ones to decide elections. I do not think that corporations should be able to be compared to a person. I think this could be dangerous when thinking in the long run. The spending in elections has gone up and I think the trend will continue, which I think is very dangerous. Money should not equal power. I agree with Justice Stevens when he said “corporations are not members of society…” and I fully believe corporations will try to abuse this power.
Justice Kennedy said that there was no significant governmental interest in limiting the political speech of corporations. In my opinion, there should have been an interest in the ability of corporations to spend unlimited funds in an election. We cannot underestimate the effect that billion dollar corporations can have on people and ideas.
On a brighter note, this at least empowers unions to spend money from their general treasury to advocate for or against a candidate.
Hi Pres,
“On a brighter note, this at least empowers unions to spend money from their general treasury to advocate for or against a candidate.” Why is this a “brighter note?”
see Kayla above
This case is important because it makes us understand better the Hobby Lobby case where people are seen as the most important asset of the company. Citizen United’s decision made companies have the same rights as people. Rights such as freedom of speech, religion, etc. This could be dangerous at long term, in my opinion.
If money equates speech, the court could not logically argue that some individuals and even corporations have a larger speech than regular individuals. Why is Coca-Cola allowed to have more “speech” than me in an election that affects me more than it does them? Wouldn’t violate the notion of one person one vote? I know this ruling was disappointing to so many people, and after last election (the most expensive in history) this case just shows the slipping grasp regular individuals have on their own democracy.
It seems a tab bit confusing to consider that this case could have 4 different legal questions. How likely is it that majority justices would agree on all 4 rulings in the exact same way? This case is interesting because regardless, today we can see the power, money, and influence that corp have over our society. This case also brings up important implications that media has over society and political beleifs.
This ruling favored a corporation’s opinion, stating that if limits were implemented it’d be a violation of their 1st Amendment which I completely disagree because corporations aren’t in favor of anything nor anyone unless it benefits them with gained profits.
Citizens United most notably establishes a much firmer definition and enforcement of corporate personhood which extended the rights of corporations as if they were individuals. The relevance of this decision to this case will likely be the fact that this decision means that corporations are protected under the Bill of Rights i.e. speech, religion, protest, which changes the way that government regulations can impact corporations.
Further, the actual decision in the case (not just the impact) was so messed up. The ability to funnel unlimited amounts of money into elections is crazy, especially the idea that corporations can do this and have an impact on the outcomes of our elections. It’s baffling that we’ve extended these rights
Kirsten BermudezDec 10, 2020
The Supreme Court ruled that independent political broadcasts has no limit, and if their spending were limited, it would be a violation of the First Amendment, which says stresses the freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom of press, and freedom of assembly.
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Nicole Solayman
Nicole SolaymanDec 3, 2020
The court’s ruling to ultimately protect freedom of speech for corporations feel like a major stretch. Corporations are one not individuals and two are not representative of the general public, but of their own needs to maintain their profit.
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Leya Ismail
Leya IsmailDec 2, 2020
This case addressed several constitutional questions, and also overruled Austin V Michigan Chamber of Commerce and McConnell V FEC.
The four questions that this case addressed were:
1) Did the Supreme Court’s decision in McConnell resolve all constitutional challenges to the BCRA when it upheld the disclosure requirements of the statute as constitutional?
2) Were the BCRA’s disclosure requirements unconstitutional when applied to electioneering requirements because they are protected “political speech” and not subject to regulation as “campaign speech”?
3) If a communication lacks a clear plea to vote for or against a particular candidate, is it subject to regulation under the BCRA?
4) Should a documentary about a candidate for political office be subject to regulation under the BCRA?
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Sebastian Lech
Sebastian LechDec 1, 2020
Citizens United sought to distribute and broadcast a documentary film about Hilary Clinton, “Hilary: The Movie,” using general treasury funds. The film was released during the 2008 democratic primary season. Under the BCRA Act, any speech by corporation or union referring to a political candidate during a primary or general election period, was not allowed to use general treasury funds. Dissenting Justice Stevens argued that corporations were not members of society, and are not protected by the 1st amendment in the same way individuals were.
For many years, companies have been making political statements in slogans and ad campaigns, but also through campaign contributions and lobbying. Should this be protected under the 1st amendment? How should individuals separate themselves from the corporations they work for, and still work towards the interests that help their company benefit? Many of these corporations are part of PACs and are able to pour in money into non-profit lobbying groups.
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Jyah Vora
Jyah VoraDec 1, 2020
I disagree with the court’s ruling. More specifically, I strongly disagree with Justice Kennedy’s reasoning that by restricting corporate speech, would be silencing voices that best represent the most important segments of the economy. Corporations (especially Amazon) are extremely wealthy and powerful, and if the government were to ‘restrict’ their speech (aka money) big corporations would find loopholes. Corporations are hard to silence, given their wealth and influence in the government (lobbying). Also, corporations are far from being defined as individuals and should not receive First Amendment rights. This is a very slippery slope.
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Henry Jiang
Henry JiangNov 30, 2020
This was a very controversial case. Some people praised the ruling for victory of the freedom of speech, and others condemn it as rewriting the laws on campaign finance. According to President Obama in his State of the Union address one week after, that decision would “open the floodgates for special interests…to spend without limit in our elections.” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito attended, and mouthed the words “not true.”
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Sania Kanji
Sania KanjiNov 30, 2020
It’s kind of sad that corporations are viewed as having same constitutional first amendment rights that were intended to be for individuals. Corporations are run by money and indirectly have a lot of influence in politics or elections in general. The explanation that corporate spending should be protected by the first amendment is an argument I don’t agree with. I appreciated the opinion of Monica Youn because she dissected the issue with Citizen’s United v FEC eloquently. Corporations were being equated to private individuals and therefore their rights should be protected under the first amendment. However, that was not the question at hand. It’s not about censorship of corporations. Ultimately the argument comes to having regulation of speech or regulation of money.
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Marian Udoetuk
Marian UdoetukNov 30, 2020
I understand that the film could be seen as political speech which could be protected under the 1st Amendment, however this was intended to be a right of a person, not a corporation from my interpretation. Therefore the corporation’s “speech” in terms of the movie would not be protected. I think this case however should more so have focused on censorship, since that is what the fec was implicitly trying to do. I also disagree that money can be seen as a aid or simply equal to speech. That does not make sense since money is a tool used for power that is unequal. If that were the case, the richer one was, the more “‘speech” they had and vice versa. Maybe they saw it as the more money, the more eyes on said “speech”.
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Ashanti Simpkins
Ashanti SimpkinsNov 30, 2020
Citizens United sought an injunction against the FEC for a political movie titled Hilary: a movie that expressed opinions on whether a candidate would be a good president. The Court maintained theor position that money is speech and regulating the money that corporations spent would limit their 1st amendment right. The court did say however that while unions or corporations may not give money directly to a campaign, they can use their funds in other ways t sway the public (ads) In a lot of this money as speech cases, corporations are treas individuals, in a way that they have certain rights that must be protected under the constitution. But, I do agree with the dissenting opinion by Justice Stevens when he says that corporations are not members of society and therefore should not be granted the same constitutional rights of actual members of society, I think that money as speech issues will continue to be an issue, specifically because the court us treating huge corporations like they are everyday members of society with the same political power and influence.
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Mara Ortiz
Mara OrtizNov 30, 2020
God I absolutely hate this case. I legit do not understand how people can make the argument that money is speech with a straight face. Money is not speech!!! Corporations are not people!!!! The first amendment was never intended to protect corporation and you cannot convince me otherwise. Also regarding the video I just have to say I absolutely want to punch Abrams in the face so badly. I fundamentally disagree with him on how he defends that this case was indeed talking about censorship, and that corporations are people and that we should FEAR that 4 judges were against it. Absolutely maddening. Also if money is speech then you can effectively buy a bigger megaphone if your a corporation and get more say, and less money buys you less speech. This is clearly unequal. Corporations dumping money into politics just means they can buy the vote. This screams corruption.
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Levi Harrison
Levi HarrisonNov 30, 2020
I agree with President Obama saying that foreign corporations will be able to influence american elections. I mean we have a President that is literally hiding his tax returns. Why would a President hide his tax documents? Did he receive finacial benefits from a foreign corporation? This could potentially make him or her a national security threat. All of the information that they learned in office could be sent to our enemies if they were to lose an election.
Also in the video, Monica Young said that the regulation of money and the regulation from speech are two different things. She also said that this is not a case about censorship on the content of speech. I don’t understand why people are bringing 1rst Amendment on this.
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Martha Madera
Martha MaderaNov 30, 2020
There is so much dissent on the decision in this case, the biggest point being the inherent inequality that will result due to the decision. The voice of a corporation will be stronger than an individual citizen, the voice of of a few rich corporations will drown out others. Allowing a multimillion corporation, run by a few select rich people, will allow for candidates to buy their way into office. Although this case still held that corporations could not directly contribute to a candidate, allowing them to spend unlimited from their funds on political campaigns takes the back door and blows it up. It would be naïve to believe that corporations don’t work with candidates and offer their support for promises that will be beneficial to the corporation, and usually detrimental to the average citizen. So although they don’t give money directly to the candidate, they can take over advertising, a huge part of campaigning.
The case was decided as a free- speech issue. The supreme- court holds that corporations are private citizens, and that citizens have the right to free-speech, especially political speech. But I don’t think that limiting the money they can spend on advertisement , or campaigning infringes on this right. No one states that you cannot campaign for a candidate, citizens united made the movie, they could have released it in a multitude of ways, but they picked an extremely expensive route that others could not take. Their free-speech was not being infringed upon, their spending was what was being limited. And by not limiting spending free-speech is less “free” and becomes something you have to buy.
I think that corporations should have a cap on how much they can spend on political campaigning, no matter where they are getting the money from. Giving them a carte-blanche on spending and campaigning is irresponsible, especially in this capitalist society where money is equated to power.
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Kevin Lyles
Kevin Lyles
Where should the cap be set?
Nov 30, 2020•Delete
Martha Madera
Martha Madera
To give an informed answer I tried to find how spending looked like and I found that overall 4 billion was spent in the 2020 election, almost double than what was spent in 2016. In terms of exact amounts per corporation a lot is unsure, corporations have dark money that they don’t disclose and an accurate number is hard to come by. Looking at https://www.trackyourcompany.org/ you can find different political categories and ow much money went to each. Walmart, the largest corporation in the us sis not disclose specifics, Amazon spent at least $3,989,791.44, Exxon Mobil spent $2,195,450.00, Chase spent at least $433,550.00. But the problem isn’t just corporations but individuals. Blomberg spent 107 million and the co-founder of Facebook spent $24 million (https://nyti.ms/2G8oEOb). Most Americans who donate spend less than $250 a year (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/17/5-facts-about-u-s-political-donations/). I think the max should be $500,000, taking into consideration that most commercials cost around $100,000 . But honestly the main issue is the lack of transparency from these corporations.
Nov 30, 2020•Delete
Kevin Lyles
Ben Lee
Ben LeeNov 30, 2020
The court found that spending on political ads paid for by corporations constituted protected speech under the first amendment. The court found that limiting contributions, would be analogous to the government leveling the playing field of speech. Doing so would be congress establishing disfavored speakers. The government failed to provide a compelling reason why political speech should be restricted by corporations and unions.
Political speech is arguably the most important function of speech. I believe that limiting political speech based upon who/what is saying it is wrong.
Money ultimately makes it easier for speech to be heard. But ultimately if an idea is bad people won’t listen.
In that same vein, I am partial to the idea that the Governments role is not in equating the accessibility of a political belief. Ideas are ultimately accepted or rejected by individuals, the government should not play a role in making sure every idea has a fair shot at being heard. Ultimately individuals choose what beliefs to hold. If they are persuaded by ads or reject them wholly that is their choice. Using the government to influence what they choose to believe in is not a direction I’d like to take.
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Reshmee Dhorchowdhury
Reshmee DhorchowdhuryNov 30, 2020
The founding father’s were trying to protect the first amendment of free speech for people, not these giant corporations. These corporations have the abundance of money, and power to advocate and push their own agendas so that they can have lawmakers that make it easier for these big corporations to have little to no regulations. This ruling has given an even easier pathway to corporations to have less regulations because they can use whatever monetary means necessary to push for candidates that suit their corporations. Corporations are drowning out the actual individual’s voice. I would support an amendment to the constitution that states that for profit organizations are not private individuals and so in turn the first amendment for free speech wouldn’t apply to them. It is a stretch, but things are changing everyday and this case seems very relevant to recent elections. I am sure it will play a huge part in the upcoming senate run offs in Georgia. I might be incorrect but from my understanding it is still illegal for corporations to directly give money to a candidate versus spending money on ads which indirectly help a candidate- like the movie on Hillary Clinton.
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Ines Josefina Castaneda
Ines Josefina CastanedaNov 29, 2020
I think this is one of the cases where it shows how badly we need easy access to valid information and to have proper education on candidates when it comes to elections. Money is a huge factor that us as voters should know where it’s going when it comes to campings because it is a huge tell on what type of candidate is the person running for office for. Now there should be limits because of how powerful money of a tool money is in politics and therefore it is why this is case is so frustrating.
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Matt Springer
Matt SpringerNov 29, 2020
The people running for president have oftentimes had a lot of money and funding, if corporations are involved the amount of money is amply increased. The election is then relied on the people with the most money, not necessarily the best candidate. This is oversimplifying the presidential process, but I find it very troubling that corporations were given the green light to spend corporate money to endorse/denounce presidential candidates. The ramifications of this Supreme Court decision can be seen today with the 2020 election being the most expensive in history. I would imagine this only getting worse in future elections to come.
Source for the most expensive election in history: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/us/politics/2020-race-money.html
A wonderful case brief video is done by the Youtuber Mr. Beat, I highly recommended https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz7xJn8X8fE
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Nadeen Elsayed
Nadeen ElsayedNov 29, 2020
I never liked this argument…An individual can vote for the corporate identity if they wish to. However, what the court just did was state that corporations as individuals themselves, thus allowing them to use their resources as anyway possible since there are no limitations. Why is this necessary when the group of individuals who run the corporation already get a say as the rest of us? All the court did was give corporation in advantage over all of us while strengthening their existence to dominate in society. Why is it necessary to consider an entire corporation as individuals when these individuals are granted to vote regardless? This only furthers corruption within the government if spending money on campaigns has no restrictions or limitations. I really don’t feel like we are taking a voice away from corporate identities when they vote and speak among us citizens anyway.
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Hannah Ellis
Hannah EllisNov 28, 2020
The Court states that government may not suppress political speech on the basis of the speaker’s corporate identity. It reasons that speech restriction based on the identity of the speaker is a means to control content. Because the Court asserts that corporations are entitled to free speech protections, controlling their expenditures would be considered as a restriction of content based on the speaker’s identity. I disagree with the idea that corporations are comparable to individuals. Sure, corporations are comprised of individuals, but they have different economic advantages and access to public media than the average American acting as an individual. I cannot say that corporations are absolutely NOT entitled to free speech protections, nor can I say that they cannot contribute to campaigns whatsoever. I believe there has to be some restriction in place because a corporation is not the same as an average individual.
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Kevin Lyles
Kevin Lyles
What is the Justice Ellis test for ” I believe there has to be some restriction in place?”
Nov 29, 2020•Delete
Hannah Ellis
Hannah Ellis
I would implement the following test:
Corporations, unions, and the like shall not provide funding to organizations that utilize slander, libel, “fighting words”, and/or misinformation in their campaign materials
Nov 29, 2020•Delete
Kevin Lyles
Zain Hussain
Zain HussainNov 28, 2020
In this case, Citizens United wanted to prevent the BCRA from affecting a Hillary Clinton movie explaining if she would make a good president. The BCRA applies restrictions to electioneering communications. I disagree with the courts ruling of corporations allowed to spend money on elections. Justice Stevens explanation that corporations are not members of society is not adequate enough of a reason. Corporations can contribute a lot of money to a campaign and influence elections more than an average person can. They should be limited in an even more special way.
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Sylvia Waz
Sylvia WazNov 27, 2020
Equating money and speech does not sit well with me. I understand how they may be connected but the Supreme Court is reaching when they are saying they are the same. If they are the same wouldn’t that mean someone with more money would have more speech rights than others? It encourages corruption in government and if money was more regulated in politics it would be a reasonable restriction. They can express their views in other ways such as speaking to others, making signs, or spending a reasonable amount on campaigns. During the panel, Ms. Young said that money enables speech but at the same time money is regulated all the time. Why should some people be more allowed to enable their speech while others are not able to because of a wealth difference? Money is regulated in many different ways and it has not been decided that it violates the first amendment. The first amendment should be applied to everyone equally and allowing some people to have their voice heard at the expense of drowning others out is a bit of a contradiction of the first amendment. This case allows for “ political speech” to be expressed for the wealthy while the poor are silenced when political speech should be freely expressed and accessible for all. The intent of the Bill of Rights was to secure individual rights for everyone, including the first amendment. Limiting the amount someone can spend is a compelling governmental interest to regulate money in politics for the sake of corruption and avoiding silencing others.
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Kevin Lyles
Kevin Lyles
“The intent of the Bill of Rights was to secure individual rights for everyone, including the first amendment.” CONGRESS shall make no law…
Nov 29, 2020•Delete
Kevin Lyles
Anshu Nidamanuri
Anshu NidamanuriNov 27, 2020
I disagree with the courts ruling that corporate spending should be limited. I do think that all groups should be able to fund elections but limits should be made for democracy’s sake.
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Kevin Lyles
Kevin Lyles
Anshu you to say above that spending should NOT be limited and SHOULD be limited in the same sentence.
Nov 27, 2020•Delete
Anshu Nidamanuri
Anshu Nidamanuri
Sorry, I meant i disagree with court not limiting spending!
Nov 27, 2020•Delete
Kevin Lyles
Juan Capilla
Juan CapillaNov 25, 2020
I thought this was a very interesting talk and it was nice to have Mr. Abrams as part of the panel as someone who was directly involved in the Citizens United v. FEC case. Having only been introduced to the relationship between the 1st Amendment and election expenditures/contributions in the past week for this course, I was partial to Ms. Youn’s argument that while there may be a relationship between money and speech, the Court may be going too far in directly equating and substituting between the two. The idea that money is speech seems incredibly radical to me, though I realize i’m probably way behind the times on that one. I would also like to look at the data being cited by Mr. Issacharoff regarding the relatively weak impact that corporations actually have on election campaigns as opposed to the large amount of force and money they are willing to exert on lobbying efforts, solely because this seems mostly counter-intuitive to me, though I can understand some of the reasons he listed off for this being the case. Ultimately I must agree that I’m troubled by the Court’s decision in this case and the possible widespread impacts it may have on elections. Although, it’s been 10 years since the case was decided and this video was recorded so i’d be interested to know how the predictions of the panelists and President Obama’s statement in his State of the Union Address have played out since then and whether the case has indeed had large repercussions on the scale of elections.
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Kevin Lyles
Kevin Lyles
great comment Juan, thoughtful
Nov 27, 2020•Delete
Kevin Lyles
Leilani Rivera
Leilani RiveraOct 22, 2020
Im not too sure if I agree with the courts ruling in this, it seems as if the questions were overlooked and rushed by the majority.
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Nizar Quafisheh
Nizar QuafishehOct 22, 2020
Like the rest of my classmates, I disagree with the court’s decision here in reasoning that corporations are allowed to spend money on elections. My problem is however, that while I believe that corporate spending harms the people, it is difficult to prove the unconstitutionality of it.
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Rama Izar
Rama IzarOct 18, 2020
As many others have already stated in this comment section, I also disagree with the Court’s ruling. It is quite frustrating that the case did not do much to resolve the problem of money being spent on elections.
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Haneen Abdelhafez
Haneen AbdelhafezOct 18, 2020
I agree with Justice Stevens dissenting opinion that “corporations are not members of society and that there are compelling governmental interests to curb corporations’ ability to spend money during local and national elections.” However, the duopoly has been funded and backed by corporate PAC money for quite some time now. When Wall Street, or any industry, is giving money to politicians, they’re often giving in hopes of gaining influence with legislators which is what has been happening in American politics for decades. To me, I didn’t think that this case brought up any “new” scenarios..
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Kevin Lyles
Kevin Lyles
So, you agree that corporations people with 1st Amendment rights?
Nov 29, 2020•Delete
Haneen Abdelhafez
Haneen Abdelhafez
yes, but that they should not be.. i dont know if this makes sense sorry!
Nov 29, 2020•Delete
Kevin Lyles
Kevin Lyles
now you have really lost. are you summarizing the Court, or, giving your own opinion, or, both at the same time
Nov 30, 2020•Delete
Haneen Abdelhafez
Haneen Abdelhafez
both, sorry for the confusion.. i simply meant to say that i disagree with the court’s ruling that they are people with 1st amendment rights. hence why i agreed with the dissenting
Nov 30, 2020•Delete
Kevin Lyles
Kevin Lyles
my fault. My reading comprehension is way down. I did see that you were referring to the dissent. my mistake. thanks.
Nov 30, 2020•Delete
Haneen Abdelhafez
Haneen Abdelhafez
of course, haha no worries at all! i should’ve been more clear.
Nov 30, 2020•Delete
Kevin Lyles
Jyah Vora
Jyah VoraOct 18, 2020
I do not agree with the court’s ruling in this case, I agree with Justice Stevens dissent in that corporations are not members of a society and the First Amendment should not extend to corporations. I strongly believe that corporations can and will try to abuse this, given how much money and power they have. I also thought that the background for this case was interesting, I didn’t realize that Hillary’s movie is what started this case!
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Emma WhaleyOct 15, 2020
The Supreme Court ruled that the first amendment gives people the freedom to think for themselves (freedom of speech) and extended it to include corporate speech as well; to exclude corporations from the protections provided by this amendment, would be silencing the voices that represent the most important segments of economy. I agree with the dissenting opinion of Justice Stevens, that corporations are not the same as individuals and that there will probably be consequences in the end to allowing them to spend money, and indirectly influence and persuade voters through ads and other means, during elections. To me, simply upholding their disclosure requirements and the ban on direct aid to campaigns is “facially” a good restriction on corporations, however, in practice, it doesn’t ban the infinite amount of money corporations can use to endorse one candidate and bad mouth another, which could potentially influence/coerce voters to vote a certain way. I did further reading on the potential effects of this decision and found an overwhelming amount of fear that our democracy could be affected. One website suggested that a government of and by big money supporters could only be for big money supporters, and that when corporations are allowed to flood the airwaves with ads, broadcasts, and movies (in this case), they drown out the voices of other citizens, undermining the political equality of our democracy. (https://www.demos.org/policy-briefs/10-ways-citizens-united-endangers-democracy)
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Elizabeth Peralta
Elizabeth PeraltaOct 13, 2020
I disagree with the courts decision in this case in which they held that under the first amendment corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections can’t be limited.
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Kevin Lyles
Liliana Diaz
Liliana DiazOct 13, 2020
I think this is a very troubling case. It fails to regulate the spending and influence in our politics. It basically says that money is speech and corporations are not people.
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Omar Leon
Omar LeonDec 13, 2019
In our discussion in class about money as a form of speech, we talked about how in this instance, only those with money have a say in our nations government and those that the government should work for are left out. It is interesting to see that with out money, you are not important to the government and their is no way to make your voice heard.
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Yj Hwang
Yj HwangDec 12, 2019
Money being speech only benefits the ones with it
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Deleted user
Deleted userDec 10, 2019
Unlimited campaign funding according to the 1st amendment, grants free speech!!
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Matt Springer
Matt SpringerDec 9, 2019
I’ve always had strong opinions on cases like this. I think that larger scale ramifications on this case will be huge, the amount of spending and political influencing that will happen because of this will be pretty bad. Although it is hard to argue with the corporation having that right, but clearly there has to be a decent limit on said speech.
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Henry Jiang
Henry JiangDec 5, 2019
In the discussion, Floyd Abrams, one of the attorneys for the case, said the overturned restrictions was “anathema to the First Amendment.” In response, Monica Youn, counsel in the Democracy Program at the NYU Law school, argued that the difference between legislation of money and legislation of speech was ‘blurred in the decision.”
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Christopher King
Christopher KingDec 5, 2019
I don’t think Floyd Abrams case is that strong. I think he is misconstruing that corporations speak for THE people, when it just seems that they are just megaphones for the wealthy. I think Citizens United and the New York times are two very different organizations and thusly should be treated that way.
I think people speak for people just fine and that speaking should be done through media reporting and investigations (which should be apolitical) and the politicians themselves. The Koch brothers (in regards to when bother were alive) and other billionaires shouldn’t be allowed to give more to their candidates through dark money.
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Bill Rohm
Bill RohmDec 5, 2019
I found the forum discussion to be very interesting. While I strongly disagree with the Citizens United ruling, I have to admit that Floyd Abrams makes a very good case for it (which, seeing as he was the one with the winning argument, is not exactly a surprise). Ultimately I think this is a good example of a case where a noble ideal fails to translate itself to reality (not unlike the Second Amendment). It’s easy to say that more speech is good speech and money is merely a way of ensuring that more speech is heard. The problem here is fairly obvious: the end result is that those with the most money can drown out the speech of everyone else. I think Rehnquist’s comparison of money’s effect on speech to a sound amplifier has some merit, but is also disingenuous: the power to flood the airwaves with unending negative campaign ads is much more likely to deafen an opponent than a bullhorn. Ultimately I think the solution to campaign finance reform will have to be a campaign finance constitutional amendment. The good news is that this is theoretically possible; the bad news is that, in today’s political climate, it doesn’t exactly feel possible.
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Deleted user
Deleted userDec 4, 2019
Despite my absolutist views and leanings, I do not think corporations are people. If corporations are people, then the higher-ups at Toyota should be charged with involuntary manslaughter for their roles in the ’09 braking scandal.
Now, in regards to whether money equals speech…I have a feeling this may be one of the dumber arguments I’ve made, but assuming that money is speech, if the government collects a person’s tax dollars for something that person doesn’t want to contribute to, wouldn’t that constitute a free speech violation? Aren’t you forcing that person to associate with speech that he or she disagrees with?*
*See Pacific Gas and Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Commission of California (1986).
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Monalisa Mensah
Monalisa MensahDec 4, 2019
The court held that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions.
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Julio Hernandez
Julio HernandezDec 4, 2019
I have mix views on this issue, I do not agree with the idea of big cooperations spending millions on elections. At the same time there needs to be a remedy that regulates money in elections and not speech.
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Ayesha Mohammed
Ayesha MohammedDec 4, 2019
Youn mentions that three assumptions need to be made in regards to this case: (1) money is speech, (2) corporations are people, and (3) elections should be a marketplace. She also makes an interesting point on how elections no longer revolve around the voice of the people. Rather, they are focused on corporations and the money they offer.
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Jeanine Saleh
Jeanine SalehDec 4, 2019
Right now I still cannot decide my views on this case, but I do agree with the statements made that corporations cannot fund campaigns like that.
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Philip Garza
Philip GarzaDec 4, 2019
At first I didn’t know what to really think about this case in terms of what side I was on cause I do think there was good arguments made for both. However after hearing Floyd Abrams point of view I think I would have to say I agree with the decision made in this case. If you want to regulate political spending from corporations you do not do it by limiting speech. As Floyd mentions there are many different ways in which you can regulate political spending from corporations, speech however is not one of them.
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Marissa Scavelli
Marissa ScavelliDec 3, 2019
This is an interesting case with several issues. But I think the main point that’s relevant to our discussion is that the Court held that the First Amendment protects the right to free speech, despite the speaker’s corporate identity. The Court concluded that political spending is a form of protected speech and therefore the government shall not keep corporations from using money to support and/or denounce candidates in elections. In the Court’s opinion, Justice Kennedy stated that “The First Amendment protects the resulting speech, even if it was enabled by economic transactions with persons or entities who disagree with the speaker’s ideas…No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.” Even though corporations can contribute money to campaigns to support or not support certain candidates, we the people still have the freedom to choose whom we will vote for. Obviously the media attempts to persuade people toward their favored candidate, but at the end of the day we should make educated decisions based on our own beliefs and research. I think the problem is that a lot of people do not care enough to look outside of the media for facts about the candidates and do not make educated votes.
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Crystal Lopez
Crystal LopezDec 3, 2019
In this case Citizens United makes a movie against Hillary to reduce her chances of winning. They wanted to use their treasury funds to broadcast the movie on TV but the BCRA prohibit them from doing that. They appealed and the court ruled that the ruling in McConnell could not be applied here. It said that political speech is the most protected speech and it was needed for democracy. Unions and corporations were given their right to publicly support or reject a candidate through ads and movies. Corporations and unions were still denied the right to donnate to candidates.
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Ines Josefina Castaneda
Ines Josefina CastanedaDec 1, 2019
This is more difficult to see who really had reason. Many male viewers today have been upset and made that women are getting to be the front and center of franchises or when women are in position power. There is also the question of what the real intentions of the movie because was deemed to put Hillary in a bad light which also goes against some rules in terms of speech.
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Andrew Tuider
Andrew TuiderNov 25, 2019
The ruling in this case effectively classified money as speech, making any limitations on spending for political purposes a limitation on political speech, which is a violation of the First Amendment. Combined with other various campaign finance laws, a candidate may take unlimited amounts of money from domestic and foreign entities (and also do not have to disclose how much and from whom, depending on how money was donated). I think this ruling has effected the country in many ways we do not know yet, though I think the Mueller probe and current impeachment efforts, if successful, will find a lot of connections to current lawmakers doing things that were made legal by this case.
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Patrick Scaletta
Patrick ScalettaNov 27, 2017
I think it is interesting that Citizens United tried to follow in the legal footprints which were
created as a result of the Court’s review of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 after Citizens United filed a Complaint alleging a breach of the BCRA. However, the District Court’s review of the film said that the film, “Hillary,” could not be viewed as anything other than a solicitation for individuals to vote against Hillary Clinton. The Supreme Court struck down precedent established in McConnell and gave way to corporations to freely express their political speech.
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Deleted user
Deleted userNov 27, 2017
Justice Kennedy says that political speech is necessary to be protected. Justice Kennedy also says that corporations and unions should be able to speak on matters regarding who should be president. Although the panelists all provide strong arguments and contributions to the question regarding FEC Vs Citizens United, I agreed most with Abrams when he says that “one cannot predict the future” he says it’s hard to control corporate money. The people running for president have often times had a lot of money and funding, if corporations are involved the amount of money is amply increased. The election is then relied on the people with the most money, not necessarily the best candidate. This is oversimplifying the presidential process, but I find it very troubling that corporations were given the green light to spend corporate money to endorse/denounce presidential candidates
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Deleted user
Deleted userNov 27, 2017
In the majority opinion Justice Kennedy opposes the prohibitions in the BCRA against independent expenditures by corporations by writing, “we find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the Government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers,” but that only seems to follow if you believe corporations are “speakers” with all the same rights as a human being. This seems easily contradicted with the fact that, unlike actual human beings, corporation are prohibited from donating to candidates directly because, as stated in Buckley v. Valeo, there is a compelling interest for the federal government to limit corruption, or the appearance of corruption. Although Buckley v. Valeo did not apply to independent expenditures, the same compelling interest seems to be present. “Soft money” expenditures by corporations have the same potential to corrupt as “hard money” donations to the candidate.
I agreed mostly with Monica Yuon’s arguments on the NYU panel. She makes the point that money is not speech, and this seems obvious since we do limit how money can be used in regard to elections. Even individuals are limited in how much they can donate directly to a candidate, because of the corrupting influence money can have. This is not considered limiting a person’s speech, even though donations affect their ability to help get their message out through their candidate. Again, I have a hard time seeing the difference between the effect of “soft” and “hard” money have as corrupting influences. If we want a democracy the represents the average person, then we need to try to minimize the role that money plays in our elections.
*Listening to the oral arguments for this case was very helpful in understanding the nuances – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow5vrVda4QQ
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Deleted user
Deleted userNov 26, 2017
The panel juxtaposes three different views concerning the ruling in the Citizens United case. All three contribute compelling arguments. I found Issacharoff’s presentation the most meaningful. Him presenting a view that is in the middle of the argument really highlighted the complexity of both the case and its effects on politics.
Interesting op ed written by the President of Citizens United: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0301-bossie-citizens-united-20160226-story.html
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Christopher Nevarez
Christopher NevarezNov 25, 2017
All three panelists presented very strong arguments on this case. Abrams made a great point when he mentioned that caselaw has time and time again protected the First Amendment rights of corporations, such as media outlets. This and his stress on the supremacy of political speech over all other forms of speeches serve to strengthen the argument for citizens united. Youn responds by criticizing what she calls the overboard ruling of the Court. She sees a real problem in the way the Court seems to make money absolutely synonymous with speech. She mentioned Exxon Mobile pulling together $700, 000 and then distributing it to those that support their agenda. She describes this as a very troubling result of the current system of lobbying. In the middle of the issue, is Issacharoff who explains the problem with the lack of accountability, of elected officials, that this system creates. He mentioned that no candidate or official can be held accountable if pacs and other groups are able to run free with ads. But Issacharoff clearly points out that with this debate, we are losing sight of what is the real problem. To him, lobbying is the real problem. He describes how groups do not mind who gets elected as much as they care about persuading those that are already in office. At the end, Abrams presents various alternatives and regulations that he argues do not run afoul with the First Amendment. The main one he presents is making regulations such as “shareholder approval” which could prevent large corporations from taking action without the widespread approval of the shareholders. Prior to watching this video I was completely opposed to the Court’s decision. But after watching this I am pulled more towards the middle. I now understand the serious threat that regulations on political s might cause to the First Amendment and like Issacharoff, I now believe that this is not a white and black issue and there are other ways for us to combat the corrosive effect that money, and especially dark money, have on our political system.
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Deleted user
Deleted userOct 26, 2016
Argument for Citizens United:
Section 203 violates the First Amendment on its face and when applied to “The Movie” and its related advertisements.
Sections 201 and 203 are also unconstitutional as applied to the circumstances.
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Deleted user
Deleted userOct 25, 2016
Since the holding is posted above, I will talk about the significance of this case as well. The ruling in Citizens United has allowed for dark money to be used in support of their candidates, leaving the public unaware of the agenda behind those who support candidates. As what was discussed, free speech becomes “affordable” to those who have money to spend, those who cannot afford to express their freedom speech are left on the outside looking in.
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Arianna Brown
Arianna BrownOct 25, 2016
7.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIf0GH2gRvQ
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Deleted user
Deleted userOct 25, 2016
Importance of this ruling: Allows corporations and unions to spend as much money as they want to promote their political views, though they CANNOT directly endorse a candidate.
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Deleted user
Deleted userDec 1, 2015
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/18/11527/citizens-united-decision-and-why-it-matters
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Deleted user
Deleted userOct 27, 2015
http://www.acrreform.org/research/does-money-buy-elections/
This is relevant to our discussion in class regarding the value of money in elections.
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Kevin Lyles
Kevin LylesOct 22, 2015
where is the case brief?
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Deleted user
Deleted userOct 21, 2015
This case was not about censorship, argues one of the panelist. Simply put, this case tossed out the corporate and union ban on making independent expenditures. It gave corporations and unions the green light to spend unlimited sums on ads and other political tools, calling for the election or defeat of individual candidates. The court said it is OK for corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want to convince people to vote for or against a candidate.
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Deleted user
Deleted userOct 21, 2015
I found the Court’s notion that a corporation’s viewpoints can advise voters as inherently naive. The very structure of a corporation is set up for the purposes of making money. Therefore, the vast majority of their actions will be to serve this interest. While the means a corporation uses may be to “advise” voters, it will advise them to adhere to whatever spin the corporation uses to serve its interest.–not whatever is in the voter’s interest.
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Deleted user
Deleted userOct 21, 2015
Interesting video! A rough summary of the remarks from Floyd Abrams:
Floyd Abrams (Partner, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP):
– Argued the Citizens United case before the Supreme Court. Abrams is the first speaker. He states that he hopes to make non-adversarial articulation in the history and proceedings of the Citizens United case.
– Abrams outlines a history of law and cases that pertain to corporate spending, elections, and free speech.
– The Taft-Hartley law of 1947 was the 1st law that made it illegal for corporations to engage in independent expenditures for elections. President Truman vetoed the law on the grounds it was a violation of the 1st Amendment, but his veto was overridden by Congress and Taft-Hartley ultimately passed.
– Abrams then outlines 4 or 5 cases that he says laid the groundwork for what happened in Citizens United case:
1) Buckley v. Valeo: in this case the Court distinguished between independent expenditures and contributions for purposes of analysis, saying that contributions COULD be regulated, that there was a 1st Amendment interest in allowing contributions to be made, but that interest could be overridden for social needs [of fairness] considering that contributions are so close to the candidate. In Contrast, the Court ruled that independent expenditures COULD NOT be regulated, that it was protected by the 1st Amendment. It was unclear for a number of years whether corporations were implicated in this ban on independent expenditures since the Court did not explicitly name corporations as being able/unable to make such expenditures. Lots of speculation followed this case as to whether corporations were included/excluded from the ruling on independent expenditures.
2) First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti
3) Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. G.W. Thomas Drayage & Rigging Co
4) Michigan Chamber of Commerce v. Austin (reversed in Citizens United)
5) McConnell v. FEC (McCain-Feingold law reversed. Abrams actually represented McConnell in this case)
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Deleted user
Deleted userOct 21, 2015
Considering how vague many components in the U.S. Constitution are, that leaves an opening for new views, interpretations and manipulation. Corporations have individuals embedded within them, otherwise they wouldn’t exist. That means that views which are provided by any individual can also be provided by heads of a corporation, as well as the employees found within them. When you talk about campaigns and money, that leaves an easy opening for anyone who wants to finance a campaign with as much revenue as they want. At this point it is believed that money is itself a form of speech. All of this come from the vague idea of free speech found in our founding document. As times passes, you’ll have more and more definitions of free speech. That’s leaves us with a never-ending problem unless we find some way of definitively acknowledging the boundaries of all the principals found in the U.S. Constitution. Those boundaries won’t be set with tests that the court imagines and employs from time to time.
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Jauwan Hall
Jauwan HallOct 27, 2014
I feel like there is so much to this case that isn’t brought up. For instance, in class last week, Professor Lyles said that the Constitution is supposed to guarantee equality of opportunity… However, this case would not be an issue if equality of opportunity actually existed under our Constitution, thus, this SCOTUS ruling comes under attack by those who are supposed to be protected.
For example, a child born into poverty on Chicago’s Westside with an unstable family situation, is born with a clear disadvantage compared to a child born into an affluent suburb with a better school system and stable family. Under the Constitution, both of these children should have the same access to quality education, quality housing, and a quality support system, however, that just is not the way it is.
To bring this full circle, corporations, with all of their money, and access, have the ability to buy, lease, or rent political influence, while others who are not born into affluent or powerful families, or privileged positions, will most likely never even have the opportunity to reach the level of wealth that gives these corporations the ability to exercise such a strong influence over the political system. Further more, the policies enacted by the rich and wealthy corporations and people through their bought, leased, or rented politician, usually serve to further enrich those who are already in a financially privileged position, further driving inequality, and access to equality of opportunity.
Equality of opportunity, or the lack thereof, is what I believe is the foundational issue in this case. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the Constitutional issue.
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Kevin Lyles
Kevin Lyles
“Under the Constitution, both of these children should have the same access to quality education, quality housing, and a quality support system, however, that just is not the way it is” I disagree…strongly. We can explore this, and we will in 358. In the meantime, consider the distinction between “equality of opportunity” v “equality of results.” The Constitution does NOT guarantee “equality of access to quality education.” Ask me about this in class. We will need to spend about 250 years defining the word “equality.”
Oct 28, 2014•Delete
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Kevin Lyles
Deleted user
Deleted userOct 23, 2014
The 93% number was based of 2008 Representative races, and the numbers do fluctuate, but stay well into the vast majority at 85% or higher for Congressional elections
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/oct/17/occupy-wall-street/occupy-wall-street-protesters-sign-says-94-percent/
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Kevin Lyles
Kevin Lyles
okay, so “Mostly True” thanks
Oct 27, 2014•Delete
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Kevin Lyles
Deleted user
Deleted userOct 22, 2014
Giving corporations rights of citizens takes away the rights of the people that compose it but do not have a say in corporate decisions. If an executive board makes a decision under freedom of speech, the speech of their subordinates are suppressed
Lucas Woody Stanfield
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Deleted user
Deleted userOct 22, 2014
Constitutional protections should apply to all citizens of the United States. What makes a corporation a citizen? Protection of individuals is already guaranteed, including those individuals that comprise a corporation. Since a corporation is a group of individuals it possesses the ability to suppress individual impact on political elections. -L. Trujillo
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Deleted user
Deleted userOct 22, 2014
I think that our rights should not be extended to corporations because they are not citizens of the United States. They cannot be held accountable like a person can. They should adhere to rules already in place for them. Furthermore, corporations did not earn the right to free speech as they are not a sentient human beings (along with all the other requirements to be a citizen, although this one should be their first disqualification factor), they are based on ideas and they lack rationality and things which are within their interests are not necessarily within society’s interests and they are large enough to cause imbalance in a way that one individual cannot.
G. Bedolla
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Deleted user
Deleted user
I absolutely agree with you. I fail to see how a corporation can even come close to being in the same category as a person.
-Egle S.
Oct 22, 2014 (edited Oct 22, 2014)•Delete
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Kevin Lyles
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