I'm very disappointed with the comments I see on this thread.
I think the problem many people have with Citizens United v. FEC is that it opens the door to political activity that seems counter to our long held principal of one man, one vote.
I don't think anyone has a problem with a group of people pooling their resources with the intent to run campaign ads on a given topic or candidate. That's basic democratic activity.
The problem occurs when resources are highly concentrated in an individual such that he can drown out the voice of others.
The natural tradeoff in capitalism is between efficiency and equality: resources are deployed efficiently but the gains are distributed unequally. Capital owners necessarily benefit the most from capitalism. Businesses generally own the most capital in our system; there are a few billionaire individuals, but the vast majority of billionaires are corporations.
So in a campaign system where money buys voter attention, the loudest and most attention-getting speakers will tend to be corporations. These speakers who have disproportionate influence have the ability to control political discourse based more on the size of their megaphone than on the quality of their ideas. This should be troubling to anyone who values enlightenment-era principles like the best ideas winning on their own merits via rational discourse.
In practice, greater influence imbues additional voting power in these speakers, both through direct leverage with Congressional representatives as well as through the power to dominate the airwaves at election time. Large corporations don't have just a few times more influence, they have 3-6 orders of magnitude more influence than the average individual. They meet directly with Senators. When was the last time you had a personal meeting with your Senator?
This is what people mean when they complain that companies can "buy elections" or "buy legislation." I think everyone would agree that this is already occurring. Witness the Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act, brought to you by the Disney Corporation. Very few legal scholars would argue that this legislation was in the public interest.
Citizens United opens the door to even greater corporate influence in our political discourse. Many people believe it will only worsen this situation of vastly unequal participation in our democracy.
The point is simple, if extraordinarily difficult for those of us proud of our traditions to accept: this democracy no longer works. Its central player has been captured. Corrupted. Controlled by an economy of influence disconnected from the democracy. Congress has developed a dependency foreign to the framers' design. Corporate campaign spending, now liberated by the Supreme Court, will only make that dependency worse. "A dependence" not, as the Federalist Papers celebrated it, "on the People" but a dependency upon interests that have conspired to produce a world in which policy gets sold.
I think the problem many people have with Citizens United v. FEC is that it opens the door to political activity that seems counter to our long held principal of one man, one vote.
I don't think anyone has a problem with a group of people pooling their resources with the intent to run campaign ads on a given topic or candidate. That's basic democratic activity.
The problem occurs when resources are highly concentrated in an individual such that he can drown out the voice of others.
The natural tradeoff in capitalism is between efficiency and equality: resources are deployed efficiently but the gains are distributed unequally. Capital owners necessarily benefit the most from capitalism. Businesses generally own the most capital in our system; there are a few billionaire individuals, but the vast majority of billionaires are corporations.
So in a campaign system where money buys voter attention, the loudest and most attention-getting speakers will tend to be corporations. These speakers who have disproportionate influence have the ability to control political discourse based more on the size of their megaphone than on the quality of their ideas. This should be troubling to anyone who values enlightenment-era principles like the best ideas winning on their own merits via rational discourse.
In practice, greater influence imbues additional voting power in these speakers, both through direct leverage with Congressional representatives as well as through the power to dominate the airwaves at election time. Large corporations don't have just a few times more influence, they have 3-6 orders of magnitude more influence than the average individual. They meet directly with Senators. When was the last time you had a personal meeting with your Senator?
This is what people mean when they complain that companies can "buy elections" or "buy legislation." I think everyone would agree that this is already occurring. Witness the Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act, brought to you by the Disney Corporation. Very few legal scholars would argue that this legislation was in the public interest.
Citizens United opens the door to even greater corporate influence in our political discourse. Many people believe it will only worsen this situation of vastly unequal participation in our democracy.