As to the politics, I assume that the Democrats see a fundraising advantage conferred to the Republicans by the decision which could come into play next year. Obama wants to deal with that imbalance legislatively, and quickly, and hence uses the national platform of the SOTU to help these legislative initiatives. That is separate from the question of whether his criticisms have merit.

At this point, my purpose is to understand the decision and its likely effects. As sinz stated, there is some difference in the case law between contributions and direct speech (as I understand it, the court has allowed caps on contributions, finding that preventing corruption is a compelling government interest). The court in Citizens United expressly declines to state that preventing foreign influence is a compelling state interest. Hence, I think it is in doubt that those laws preventing foreign corporations from making contributions will be held Constitutional. Clearly, however, caps on contributions for foreign corporations will not prevent direct speech.

I don’t know if this is a grave issue – I simply don’t know enough about campaign finance and how much foreign influence is already in the system. I also don’t know whether – if and when the question is squarely presented – some of the majority in Citizens United will find a compelling interest in excluding foreign influence and squelch this concern.

I find myself agreeing with the Austin case, and I think that the greater protection of the rights of corporations does lead to a number of issues, including foreign influence. The thing about loopholes and rules, they seem to naturally stretch over time, so the degree of concern and form it takes will change over time. I really see no benefit to the nation from the Citizens United decision.

But, I appreciate the opportunity to actually discuss the decision, not the senseless issue of whether there was a breach of propriety, or a dumb debate in which the liberals say that it’s just crazy for corporations to have any rights and the conservatives say Obama lied.

There is a difference between defending a practice and suggesting that the possibility of said practice is unlikely to be consequential. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to broadly defend McCain-Feingold, but people did in spite of it’s universally recognized imperfections.

All of this said, the loophole for a foreign entity to influence American elections is very, very narrow. There are laws still on the books (http://fec.gov/law/feca/feca.pdf) prohibiting a foreign national from making a campaign contribution, and for the purposes of this law, a national is defined as a corporation.

As I understand it, then, the loophole resides within American companies held by a plurality of foreign stockholders, or some other sort of back door. By the same token, doesn’t this bill dis-enfranchise (so to speak) minority stockholders? As such, isn’t the real driving force behind liberal opposition to this bill at odds with the talking point? I mean, it happens, and that’s politics, but for the purposes of this board, do you have a better argument?

Not really. I would imagine that foreign money would go to both parties, once there was enough available. That might work with specific candidates, but not with issue ads, and only if there was some parity in fundraising. This isn’t just federal elections, but state elections, where the financial imbalance could be striking.

I don’t really understand why anyone would be even remotely tempted to defend the practice of any nation inviting foreign money into their elections.

Don’t you think there is some measure of balance in the fact that any candidate receiving “foreign money” can be criticized by his opponent for having done so. Again, this loophole seems to be fairly limited, and almost certainly is temporary.

My prediction? The Democratic national committee decides to target 5-7 candidates that can, ostensibly, be tied to these foreign donations in 2012. That will, more or less, end the practice, yes?

It sounds very broad-minded and modern to accept the idea that foreign corporations should be able to speak their mind in the American political system. But consider:

If we were in India, would you want WalMart and Microsoft to spend unlimted money to defeat a law on working conditions and the minimum wage? Do we want Toyota to spend money to defeat health care, because out health care system puts us at a competitive disadvantage? If you are a conservative and think unions are the root of our economic problems, do you want Toyota to promote unions? Do I want a foreign oil corporation to promote offshore drilling? (I don’t, because the people who live here and have to live with the policies should have a say on wages and the environment of our country, and no one else).

Do we want Chinese companies to support policies because they will have the effect of maintaining the trade imbalance?

Do we want a company like Airbus, which is government subsidized, to participate directly in our political process to undermine Boeing?

I can see absolutely no advantage and numerous disadvantages.

“The Citizens United ruling had nothing to do with direct campaign contributions.”

I think it does. It overruled Austin. Austin was about contributions, not direct speech.

http://supreme.justia.com/us/494/652/case.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_v._Michigan_Chamber_of_Commerce

It’s worth noting that nobody seriously thinks the floodgates are open for foreign corporations to set up the United States government as a puppet regime. For liberal critics, the biggest problem with the ruling, and Stuart Taylor has some solid analysis on this (http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/openingargument.php), is that stockholders have no say over how their companies advocate.

I disagree with his analysis; I don’t think people have any sort of constitutional right to purchase stock without a political conscience. But at least it’s an analysis, as opposed to a single talking point reshaped in increasingly bracing terms.

So you are happy that our biggest competitor nation China, whose government owns several US Corporations have a chance to shape legislation by making sure “their” guys get elected.

First amendment rights do not belong to foreigners, so why should they belong to foreign corporations?

The Citizens United ruling had nothing to do with direct campaign contributions. It freed up political advertising on broadcast media. Even there, the Supremes left standing requirements that the sources of such political advertising must be disclosed.

And I’ll repeat what I said: I don’t care how many foreigners choose to sponsor political ads on our airwaves–as long as those foreigners are not adversaries of the U.S., in which case there are perfectly good national security laws that deal with the dissemination of enemy propaganda.