Citizens United was a Supreme Court case in 2010 that made limits on certain corporate expenditures during elections unconstitutional. A video titled "Hillary: the Movie" was produced by a non-profit group of people before the 2008 Democratic primary for President. The production received most of its funding through private donations, but it also received money from for-profit corporations (see Citizens United). The producers ran into legal problems when they sought to distribute their film through "Video on Demand" during the federally monitored election time.
The movie sought to attack Hillary Clinton and influence the 2008 electorate not to vote for her because the producers believed she had a terrible career and she would offer an ominous future for America if she became President. The producers' suit against the Federal Elections Commission (F.E.C.), the part of the government that monitors public communication, claimed that the government's rules concerning non-candidate speech were unconstitutional because they prevented its free exercise. Furthermore, they argued that the F.E.C. should not judge the CONTENT of something like a political video because that "chills" the ability of citizens to speak freely. A 5-4 Supreme Court largely agreed with the producers in that they could spend "certain portions" of their funds to express their free speech rights.
Criticism of this decision revolves around attacking the abstraction "corporate personhood." I argue that "corporate personhood" has little basis in reality and fundamentally misses the legal precedents concerning free speech, freedom to contract, and freedom of association that flow from this decision and its precedents. All three of those "rights" are abstractions yes, but ones that come from constitutional amendments and have been explained through literally thousands of pages of court decisions. Precedence gives free-speech and association case law some concreteness in that real people can understand and then use them to make real-world decisions. Critics argue that Political Action Committees (P.A.C.'s) will influence the public in some "negative" way. Perhaps that might be so, depending on which PAC's you view as harmful to "democracy" and thus deserving of severe government oversight. However, I argue that this judges the CONTENT of the associated group's speech, meaning a government organization is defining what is and is not acceptable group political speech beyond all precedence because it is defining speech as political or not-political.
In short, I believe that there are two real solutions. There should either be a continuance of current law so that free speech rights and the right to freely associate are protected as expressed in Citizens United OR there must be a constitutional amendment solution that is worded in a more careful way than those "fixes" offered, namely one that more carefully delineates between the current necessarily stringent candidate requirements and those limiting non-candidate participation in the democratic process. Simply amending the constitution to end "Corporate Personhood" DOES NOT bring clarity, preserve rights, or sever the money requirement from mass group expression (see this one of many: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/proposed_constitutional_amendments/). The amendment option has a difficult path toward completion because the constitutional system was meant to be changed slowly. Perhaps this existing system is more realistic because it accounts for complicated matters like the confluence of money, speech, and federal regulatory power. Perhaps, the system and the capabilities of the human mind to understand "democracy," "speech rights," and "reform" better fit current complication than so-called "progressive reforming" amendments. Their "reforms" deny the role of money and markets in politics and instead create an artificial system that hurts rather than helps the cause of freedom. Picking and choosing the protected rights of NON-CANDIDATES would make campaigns more expensive by forcing the public to finance all political speech in order to preserve speech equality. In fact, I agree with most Occupy Wall-street sign waivers that there is no such thing as "corporate person-hood." Really, Citizens United creates nothing of the sort.
I do not want to pay any more than I already do for what I think is "bad" public political speech. Thus, "reforms" that includes universal public financing would be less effective. We should not fund all expressions of public speech as required by "equal protection." The current system whereby candidates engage in the election process according to certain rules is best. However, limiting non-candidates and their speech rights is not okay and not Constitutional. I want people to have the speech ability to say anything so long as it is protected by existing law and so long as people finance their expression themselves. Markets will better decide if messages are successful or if networks refuse to display content, they prove unsuccessful.
Conversely, I do not want to pay as a taxpayer for the public expression of private groups, just to have an equal and publicly financed system. For example, if we de-monetize elections and create a truly equal financed election system, taxpayers would be forced to pay for speech that it doesn’t support in order to equalize the resource capabilities of non-candidates. So, as much as I might like or dislike A.A.R.P., I don’t want to pay for its press reports where it as a collective body endorses a candidate. Currently, were I member of A.A.R.P., I would either have to support the endorsement views of the bodies' leadership, endure the group’s collective decision while fighting within the group to change it, or withdraw my membership dues from it to express my disapproval. The group exercises its collective speech rights for its members and by leaving, I’d be exercising my individual speech rights to disapprove and leave.
Also, Citizens United was attacked for bringing more money into the election process, for turning back the clock on election reform, for ignoring supreme court precedence that critics believe limited unnecessary corporate influence, for using previous dissenting opinions to support court action, and for increasing the role of money in political campaigns (see Justice Stevens' dissent, etc.). But, P.A.C.’s are required to be careful, specific with their record-keeping, and subject to an incredible level of review (Kennedy, Citizens United). That makes engaging in corporate political speech quite prohibitive. Federally-imposed expenses in fact LIMIT the number of PACs, concentrating P.A.C. wealth in the giants that can afford F.E.C. expenses and the political backlash. Now, the post-Citizens system opens up corporate expenditures to smaller corporations that are less likely to afford the FEC’s expensive oversight (Darmstadter). Instead, this decision firmly rests on court precedents that dissenting justices have ideological disagreements with and thus they fail to understand.
I'll list the principles traced through precedence from the founding of the country. I wrote this note not to defend corporations, justify their money expenditures, or further the CONTENT of their speech. Rather, I want to draw attention to catchall abstractions, like those that exist in proposed constitutional amendments that seek to "end Corporate Personhood," because such abstractions lack a strong basis in reality and fail to accurately describe in a logical way the complicated "rights" that we have now. Here are some principles upheld by this case.
The movie sought to attack Hillary Clinton and influence the 2008 electorate not to vote for her because the producers believed she had a terrible career and she would offer an ominous future for America if she became President. The producers' suit against the Federal Elections Commission (F.E.C.), the part of the government that monitors public communication, claimed that the government's rules concerning non-candidate speech were unconstitutional because they prevented its free exercise. Furthermore, they argued that the F.E.C. should not judge the CONTENT of something like a political video because that "chills" the ability of citizens to speak freely. A 5-4 Supreme Court largely agreed with the producers in that they could spend "certain portions" of their funds to express their free speech rights.
Criticism of this decision revolves around attacking the abstraction "corporate personhood." I argue that "corporate personhood" has little basis in reality and fundamentally misses the legal precedents concerning free speech, freedom to contract, and freedom of association that flow from this decision and its precedents. All three of those "rights" are abstractions yes, but ones that come from constitutional amendments and have been explained through literally thousands of pages of court decisions. Precedence gives free-speech and association case law some concreteness in that real people can understand and then use them to make real-world decisions. Critics argue that Political Action Committees (P.A.C.'s) will influence the public in some "negative" way. Perhaps that might be so, depending on which PAC's you view as harmful to "democracy" and thus deserving of severe government oversight. However, I argue that this judges the CONTENT of the associated group's speech, meaning a government organization is defining what is and is not acceptable group political speech beyond all precedence because it is defining speech as political or not-political.
In short, I believe that there are two real solutions. There should either be a continuance of current law so that free speech rights and the right to freely associate are protected as expressed in Citizens United OR there must be a constitutional amendment solution that is worded in a more careful way than those "fixes" offered, namely one that more carefully delineates between the current necessarily stringent candidate requirements and those limiting non-candidate participation in the democratic process. Simply amending the constitution to end "Corporate Personhood" DOES NOT bring clarity, preserve rights, or sever the money requirement from mass group expression (see this one of many: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/proposed_constitutional_amendments/). The amendment option has a difficult path toward completion because the constitutional system was meant to be changed slowly. Perhaps this existing system is more realistic because it accounts for complicated matters like the confluence of money, speech, and federal regulatory power. Perhaps, the system and the capabilities of the human mind to understand "democracy," "speech rights," and "reform" better fit current complication than so-called "progressive reforming" amendments. Their "reforms" deny the role of money and markets in politics and instead create an artificial system that hurts rather than helps the cause of freedom. Picking and choosing the protected rights of NON-CANDIDATES would make campaigns more expensive by forcing the public to finance all political speech in order to preserve speech equality. In fact, I agree with most Occupy Wall-street sign waivers that there is no such thing as "corporate person-hood." Really, Citizens United creates nothing of the sort.
I do not want to pay any more than I already do for what I think is "bad" public political speech. Thus, "reforms" that includes universal public financing would be less effective. We should not fund all expressions of public speech as required by "equal protection." The current system whereby candidates engage in the election process according to certain rules is best. However, limiting non-candidates and their speech rights is not okay and not Constitutional. I want people to have the speech ability to say anything so long as it is protected by existing law and so long as people finance their expression themselves. Markets will better decide if messages are successful or if networks refuse to display content, they prove unsuccessful.
Conversely, I do not want to pay as a taxpayer for the public expression of private groups, just to have an equal and publicly financed system. For example, if we de-monetize elections and create a truly equal financed election system, taxpayers would be forced to pay for speech that it doesn’t support in order to equalize the resource capabilities of non-candidates. So, as much as I might like or dislike A.A.R.P., I don’t want to pay for its press reports where it as a collective body endorses a candidate. Currently, were I member of A.A.R.P., I would either have to support the endorsement views of the bodies' leadership, endure the group’s collective decision while fighting within the group to change it, or withdraw my membership dues from it to express my disapproval. The group exercises its collective speech rights for its members and by leaving, I’d be exercising my individual speech rights to disapprove and leave.
Also, Citizens United was attacked for bringing more money into the election process, for turning back the clock on election reform, for ignoring supreme court precedence that critics believe limited unnecessary corporate influence, for using previous dissenting opinions to support court action, and for increasing the role of money in political campaigns (see Justice Stevens' dissent, etc.). But, P.A.C.’s are required to be careful, specific with their record-keeping, and subject to an incredible level of review (Kennedy, Citizens United). That makes engaging in corporate political speech quite prohibitive. Federally-imposed expenses in fact LIMIT the number of PACs, concentrating P.A.C. wealth in the giants that can afford F.E.C. expenses and the political backlash. Now, the post-Citizens system opens up corporate expenditures to smaller corporations that are less likely to afford the FEC’s expensive oversight (Darmstadter). Instead, this decision firmly rests on court precedents that dissenting justices have ideological disagreements with and thus they fail to understand.
I'll list the principles traced through precedence from the founding of the country. I wrote this note not to defend corporations, justify their money expenditures, or further the CONTENT of their speech. Rather, I want to draw attention to catchall abstractions, like those that exist in proposed constitutional amendments that seek to "end Corporate Personhood," because such abstractions lack a strong basis in reality and fail to accurately describe in a logical way the complicated "rights" that we have now. Here are some principles upheld by this case.
Continuing Supreme Court Principles UPHELD in Citizens United 2009, summarized from the 5 Justice majority opinion written by Justice Kennedy:
Corporations and "the Freedoms of Association and Equal Justice."
- Corporations are LEGAL relationships between people, bound together for collective action (commerce for example).
- Corporations do not have "personhood," the related members of a corporation do.
- Legal non-candidate collective speech expression is protected by the Constitution and case law.
- The first Amendment continues to protect freedom of association.
- Collective interests or associations of people can express opinions through majority agreement of that speech's CONTENT.
- There is continued "equal protection" for all legal types of collective associations (14th amendment)
Regulated Elections Process Maintained:
- The Federal government is still responsible for the national "integrity" of the elections process.
- Candidates are individual persons who voluntarily engage in an elections system that sets boundaries for what they can and cannot do or say during a federally monitored period of time.
- Collective associations of people CAN still have their direct contributions to system-bound candidates limited.
- Candidates MUST accept non-candidate contributions within parameters set by the Federal Elections Commission (F.E.C.) because as individuals, they are bound to the electoral regulatory system.
- Expenses incurred during an election are paid for using currency. (Sounds simple, I know)
- Candidates MUST fund their expression and pay for expenses within the parameters of F.E.C. rules because of their voluntary agreement to join the campaign system.
- Non-profits can engage in collective speech in a different way than for-profits.
Candidates and Non-candidates:
- Corporations CANNOT be candidates for elections, only individual persons can.
- Corporations CANNOT voluntarily join the campaign system because they are not people and only people can stand as candidates for elections.
- Corporations MAY express opinions for the majority of their associative parts.
- Candidate campaigns exist in the name of individual candidates, thus subjecting them to different rules than non-candidate collections of people.
- Both candidates and non-candidates MUST keep records in accordance with federal law. Doing so otherwise is criminal behavior.
Minority Objections to Collective Speech:
- Majority decision-making and a set of governing rules are used to make determinations for the U.S. government, so to for corporations.
- Therefore, collective associations following rules that do not conflict with the law can be assumed to be operating legally.
- Disagreeing parts (a minority) of the Federal government can express their disagreement individually, but do not speak or make determinations for the majority of the Federal government.
- Disagreeing members of corporations have individual freedoms of speech, but their opinion is not the opinion of the majority or the corporation.
Corporate Criminality:
"YOU CAN'T HOLD A CORPORATION TO ACCOUNT, BUT THE GOVERNMENT CAN JAIL ITS INDIVIDUAL CRIMINAL MEMBERS." ME
- Criminal and civil justice always involves individual punishments--you cannot put a corporation in jail--even if the punishment is distributed equally to a collection of people as in a corporation.
- You can dissolve a corporation by dissolving the legal relationships that bind people in a collective. However, some legal and financial obligations may remain after the association is officially terminated.
- Individuals bear collective costs, corporations are just legal relationships.
- "Corporations" can be civilly punished in court (fines, license removals, etc.) which punishes all parts, majority or minority opinions of real people as part of the collective voluntary association.
- Groups of people can be held accountable for individual acts if guilty.
- Corporations are groups of people who can be collectively held accountable and liable for individual acts by its members.
- Corporations exist only by their constituent (person) parts by a lawyer's representation in court and individual group members are considered innocent until proven guilty.
- Individual members of a corporation are allowed all due process rights.
Abstract or Fallacious Premises from CRITICS of the decision:
- Mass political speech can exist in 2012 America without cost (meaning money).
- Because of Citizens, those with more money (implied corporations) have more speech rights than those with less. (Speech is allowed equally if it meets the standards set by the Supreme Court concerning unacceptable forms of speech like child pornography, fighting words, etc.)
- Corporations will have an illegal influence on elections if collective speech isn't "reformed" so corporations are disadvantaged.
- Most corporations find it beneficial to engage in political speech (see Kennedy's majority decision).
- "Corporations" are people.
Sources:
Cornell University Law School. "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (Docket No. 08-205)" http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/08-205
Darmstadter, Howard. "Making Sense of Citizens United" National Affairs. Spring 2012, Issue II.Washington D.C., 2012.
Smith, Bradley. "Corporations are People, Too." National Public Radio. http//www.npr.org/templates/story.php?storyId=112711410.
Supreme Court of the United States. "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission." http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf
Reclaiming Democracy. "Proposed Constitutional Amendments." http://reclaimdemocracy.org/proposed_constitutional_amendments/
Cornell University Law School. "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (Docket No. 08-205)" http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/08-205
Darmstadter, Howard. "Making Sense of Citizens United" National Affairs. Spring 2012, Issue II.Washington D.C., 2012.
Smith, Bradley. "Corporations are People, Too." National Public Radio. http//www.npr.org/templates/story.php?storyId=112711410.
Supreme Court of the United States. "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission." http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf
Reclaiming Democracy. "Proposed Constitutional Amendments." http://reclaimdemocracy.org/proposed_constitutional_amendments/
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