RSS Feed MenuThe Supreme Court must be wondering: When will you blockheads get the message? Limits on political giving are OK. Limits on political spending are not.
The decision in the Citizens United case is indeed dramatic, overturning campaign laws first adopted more than a century ago. But the relentless drive of the speech regulators to tighten limits has pushed the country to a truly absurd point: the attempted outlawing of an advocacy documentary about a candidate for president. Really – if that is to be forbidden, what’s permitted?
For 35 years, so-called campaign finance reformers have been addressing non-problems in ways that make those non-problems bigger. They wanted to curb campaign spending and enhance transparency. Their measures have brought us to a point where so-called 527 groups can spend unlimited money in ways more secretive than ever. If there has ever been a policy failure, this is it.
The court has again and again struck speech restrictions to the ground, only to be confronted with ever new attempts to control speech.
Will we ever have a back to the drawing board moment on campaign finance? If so, now should be it.
As Peter Wallison argues in his great book on party finance, the real evil of American politics is that politicians must beg interest groups for the money to finance their campaigns. What we need is not “less money” and CERTAINLY not less speech – but more distance between donor and recipient. The mechanism for that is the political party. Reformers should be focusing on lifting limits on the flow of money from parties to candidates and restoring the role of the parties as the funders of campaigns. Instead of Candidate Smith asking Donor Gonzalez for money – and Donor Gonzalez asking for a favor in return – party chairman Robinson will ask thousands of donors for money on behalf of a slate of candidates, who will never know precisely whose gift was directed to them. That step will diminish corruption and the appearance of corruption.
The outlawing of speech by corporate group on the other hand only diminishes liberty.
COProgressive // Jan 22, 2010 at 1:00 am
David, I’m a big fan of free speech and if this case were about individuals donating to the film maker I’d be fine with it.
My big concern is this ludicrous notion of corporations as “persons”. I can’t understand how a legal entity charted in a state has the same rights and previleges, in some cases even more, than a flesh and blood citizen. Corporations can be the offspring of other corporations and those corporations need not even be American companies. How then can we allow, by simply filling out paperwork, the creation of a legal entity with full rights of citizen with it sole reason to be that of dropping money bombs that could have a stark effect on an election?
It makes no common sense. One corporation with a strong box full of money can easily negate the wishes of literally thousands of flesh and blood citizens. I don’t think this is what our founding fathers had in mind when they created this great experiment of representative government. I don’t think that they would agree that money might make right.
This isn’t a decision about the Freedom of Speech, it about who is a citizen and what is not.
I’m suggesting legislation, “The Natural Person Act”, that would define that the term “person” in all federal documents means a “natural born” person with human DNA. That would exclude all legally created entities from claiming the same rights and liberties of American citizens.
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” – John Adams
We may be headed down that path starting today
Kanzeon // Jan 22, 2010 at 1:33 am
COProgressive:
In this context, what is the difference between a corporation and other groups?
It seems to me that political parties are not fundamentally different than corporations in this regard. They raise money, run ads, etc. They hold contributions of thousands of people. They pool resources, make strategic decisions, etc., that the individuals cannot do otherwise. They need to have free speech rights. That goes for any other group of people with common interests. People should be able to create groups like the NRA and NARAL that participate in the political process, and those groups must have their speech protected, even though they aren’t real people.
Kanzeon // Jan 22, 2010 at 1:45 am
COProgressive:
In fact, the more I think about it, the less I accept your position.
Let’s say I get run over tomorrow by a shuttle on the Microsoft campus. I should look to Microsoft, not the indivdual shareholders or the CEO, for compensation. Treating Microsoft as if it had the legal status of an individual makes sense.
Microsoft hold patents and other intellectual property rights. They aren’t the product of one person. They need to be controlled by the corporate enterprise. So, why shouldn’t Microsoft have the same rights as an individual to its intellectual property, its advertising, i’s pr releases, or an ad it runs in a paper asserting its position on some political question?
Moderate // Jan 22, 2010 at 3:28 am
Mr. Frum’s proposal sounds fine initially, but on second thought:
1) This will give parties even greater control over voting behavior. Au revoir moderates!
2) This will be the end of third-party challenges.
Personally, I’d prefer that Congressmen borrow an idea from NASCAR: wear stickers identifying which corporations they’re bought by.
“The outlawing of speech by corporate group on the other hand only diminishes liberty.”
There are many times when diminishing one liberty (e.g. freedom of speech) leads to a better result. As someone who championed the PATRIOT Act, Mr. Frum, surely you agree with this!
andydp // Jan 22, 2010 at 8:56 am
I’d like to cite an excerpt from a posting by Joe Conanson on Salon.com. While I agree restrictions on free speech can be dangerous, the danger now is there are no restrictions on what corporations can spend on a candidate.
The full article is here:
http://www.salon.com/news/tea_parties/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/01/21/citizenstea
“For establishment Republicans like columnist George Will and Texas Sen. John
Cornyn, the court’s decision is simply an overdue recognition of the First
Amendment right to free speech. (Or what in fact is more aptly described as
“paid speech.”) But to understand its actual impact, listen to Michael Waldman,
executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law
School, who drew this pithy comparison: Under the old dispensation, which
prohibited direct corporate expenditures on elections for nearly a century,
Exxon Mobil could spend only what its political action committee raised from
executives and employees. In 2008, said Waldman, that was roughly $1 million.
Under the new order, the world’s biggest oil company can spend as much as its
management cares to siphon from its earnings — which in 2008 amounted to $45
billion. “
sinz54 // Jan 22, 2010 at 9:21 am
Kanzeon: It seems to me that political parties are not fundamentally different than corporations in this regard. They raise money, run ads, etc. They hold contributions of thousands of people. They pool resources, make strategic decisions, etc., that the individuals cannot do otherwise. They need to have free speech rights. That goes for any other group of people with common interests.
I agree.
And here’s another, more general point:
Progressives have never explained just at what point a small but growing business becomes “big” (and therefore “bad” in their eyes).
Lots of self-employed Americans have incorporated themselves.
Lots of mom-and-pop businesses, as soon as they grow enough to hire some more help, incorporate themselves.
Are progressives claiming that campaign contributions from these tiny businesses are some kind of threat to democracy? I doubt it.
So how big does a corporation have to get before its campaign contributions are a threat to democracy? $10 million capitalization? $100 million? $1 billion?
No.
The REAL issue is not how much the corporation is contributing to campaigns, but WHY.
I have no problem with Ben & Jerry’s contributing to the campaigns of antiwar candidates. Why? Because they’re not doing it to make a bigger profit for themselves, but simply to advance a cause they believe in personally. (The amount of extra ice cream they will sell if the Iraq War ends sooner is insignificant.)
OTOH, a pharmaceutical company that is spending big bucks on lobbyists to defeat health care reform is clearly doing it to preserve their own business position.
The answer to this problem is full disclosure: If Americans see just who is contributing and what their own financial stake is, they will turn away in disgust from such blatant conflicts of interest. Progressives are free to eschew the products of such pharmceutical companies and employ alternative medicine to treat their illnesses.
And we already have that, in websites like OpenSecrets.org that track who gives and how much and to whom.
TBoneSlim // Jan 22, 2010 at 10:40 am
Kanzeon:
It seems to me that political parties are not fundamentally different than corporations in this regard. They raise money, run ads, etc. They hold contributions of thousands of people. They pool resources, make strategic decisions, etc., that the individuals cannot do otherwise. They need to have free speech rights. That goes for any other group of people with common interests.
I disagree to the extent that Political Parties seek to raise money and those donating know the end of that means. Using the corporate profit of a company to me is very different. Maybe when your candidate’s ‘message’ is sponsored by Goldman Sachs you’ll see why I fear this ruling.
balconesfault // Jan 22, 2010 at 11:10 am
The airwaves are a public good.
Part of the answer is just to stipulate that any entity which is going to use this public good must provide free airtime during election season to candidates who meet specific thresholds. And not just 3 am or 11 am advertising slots – but prime time on TV, and drive time on radio.
That might include being a major party candidate … but you could also include thresholds like petition signatures by registered voters. Who knows – during a campaign season we might actually get to hear not only the incumbent, the challenger from the other party, and the most heavily self-financed candidates, but a real diversity of opinion.
It isn’t like our broadcast news services are doing anything to widen the range of voices that are heard past whatever fits into their scripted definition of how any conflict over issues should be viewed.
COProgressive // Jan 22, 2010 at 11:17 am
Kanzeon @ 2 wrote;
“It seems to me that political parties are not fundamentally different than corporations in this regard. They raise money, run ads, etc.”
Ahh, but there is. Corporations enter political contest not in the public interest, the supposed purpose of the political parties, but for a solely business purpose of gaining a favor, an advantage, that will increase their bottom line. Nothing more. Business doesn’t contribute to political campaigns altruistically for the most part, with few execeptions like sinz’s Ben and Jerry’s example.
Corporations do have their PAC’s where “real” flesh and blood citizens can donate and the money received is used by the corporation for their political goals, and I’m fine with that.
My objection is the notion that corporations are “persons” just doesn’t pass my smell test. Considering corporations to be some “super citizen” with the concentration of power and wealth drowns out the voices of “real” citizens and makes a mockery of a representative democracy.
or, and what TBoneSlime said too.
sinz54 @ 6 wrote;
“The answer to this problem is full disclosure: If Americans see just who is contributing and what their own financial stake is, they will turn away in disgust from such blatant conflicts of interest. Progressives are free to eschew the products of such pharmceutical companies and employ alternative medicine to treat their illnesses.”
After the damage is done? That makes no sense at all. It’s like someone poking a sharp stick in your eye and after you stay away from them, but your eye is still damaged. Allowing corporations to come in and drop money bombs in races where they want the incumbent gone and their own selected candidate in place and then suggest that if the citizens don’t like it not to buy the product is at least naïve at the worst cynical.
This isn’t a First Amendment issue, it’s a citizenship issue. Corporations aren’t citizens, they hold no allegiance to this country. In fact, an American company can be wholly owned by foreign nationals and still drop money bombs to influence OUR elections for their bottom lines? That’s ridicules!
COProgressive // Jan 22, 2010 at 11:28 am
BTW, I’m suggesting to my legislators the following act.
The Natural Person Act (H.R. xxxx) defining “person(s)” in all federal government documents to mean an individual born of a womb.
That would exclude legally created entities from claiming the rights and privileges of citizenship.
balconesfault // Jan 22, 2010 at 11:30 am
In fact, an American company can be wholly owned by foreign nationals and still drop money bombs to influence OUR elections for their bottom lines?
Exactly so. I suspect that when a Chinese corporation with an American affiliate (and let’s face it, over the next decade we’re going to see more and more divisions of American companies sold off to the Chinese) suddenly spends heavily on a campaign to unseat someone who Sinz sees as a key legislator on defense procurement issues … we’ll suddenly see a reversal of opinion on what should be allowable.
Bebe99 // Jan 22, 2010 at 11:32 am
Now corporations have all the rights of living, breathing citizens, and none of the responsibilities. Should corporations be patriotic? How can they be when their obligation is merely to make as much money as they can?
Let’s not pretend to be a democracy anymore. This decision completes our transition to a free-market oligarchy where a vote for one of two corporate sponsored candidates will be completely meaningless.
mrbond // Jan 22, 2010 at 11:57 am
Let me provide a hypothetical situation to show why I find the court’s reasoning so terrifying.
Picture, for a second, a situation where an extremely large conglomerate bank engages in financial practices that defraud investors and buyers, and banking regulations haven’t caught up to oversee these new complex financial instruments. Let’s say that this practice became so pervasive that, when the inflated value of these instruments deflated, it destabilized the entire economy. The fallout was so terrible that the extremely libertarian former Fed chairman denounced his own complacency at these new financial “innovations.” So, in response, regulations are proposed to help prevent fraudulent and dangerous financial practices in the future.
However, despite the catastrophic consequences, this large bank and its executives profited handsomely, and continue to do so, from these unscrupulous business practices, therefore any curtailing of these financial practices would hurt their bottom line. So the bank sends a high-powered lobbyist to the halls of Congress and proclaims “if you do anything to interfere with our profits, we will spend any amount of money we can to remove you from office.” And considering that this bank holds tens of billions of dollars in cash on hand, they could, alone, vastly outspend all political party, individual donor, and PAC contributions combined. They would literally buy themselves protection of their profits at the expense of everyone else. And now nothing would compel them to even disclose that it is they that are the source of the money flooding a campaign.
Giving corporations the same “speech” rights as actual persons would create just this scenario. It would make them better than actual persons. And if we’re equating money with speech, it makes their speech more meaningful and relevant than an actual person’s. Is this really the kind of country we want to live in? Nobody is advocating that McCain-Feingold was perfect. Far from it. But having no control over the flow of money into politics is not an acceptable alternative.
oldgal // Jan 22, 2010 at 12:02 pm
We should just start taxing political donations over a certain amount, say $1000 at 100 %. Seems like the folks who buy government should pay for it too.
teabag // Jan 22, 2010 at 12:27 pm
This should not be a partisan issue. There are major problems that probably will come of this. The following came from BJ
I’m losing sleep over the millions — or billions — of dollars that could flood into our elections from ARAMCO, the Saudi Oil corporation’s U.S. unit; or from the maker of “New Order” fashions, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Or from Bin Laden Construction corporation. Or Bin Laden Destruction Corporation.
Right now, corporations can give loads of loot through PACs. While this money stinks (Barack Obama took none of it), anyone can go through a PAC’s federal disclosure filing and see the name of every individual who put money into it. And every contributor must be a citizen of the USA.
But under today’s Supreme Court ruling that corporations can support candidates without limit, there is nothing that stops, say, a Delaware-incorporated handmaiden of the Burmese junta from picking a Congressman or two with a cache of loot masked by a corporate alias.
If you don’t see the danger in this than you have your ideological advantage glasses on.
balconesfault // Jan 22, 2010 at 1:01 pm
The assumption on the right seems to be that corporate interests will always primarily be aligned with Republican interests.
And that, I think, is one of the main reasons the Republicans can’t really cobble together an internally coherent ideology today, and has to primarily rely on obstructionism as a unifying force.
joedee1969 // Jan 22, 2010 at 1:26 pm
I never did see that guys film on Clinton but I think this wild monkey video is funny as Hell:
http://americaspeaksink.com/2010/01/alcoholic-vervet-monkeys-weird-nature-bbc-animals/comment-page-1/#comment-3734
Carney // Jan 22, 2010 at 1:32 pm
I like Frum’s idea about more party control, but haven’t we seen evasions of contribution limits to candidates and patently dishonest denials of coordination, where a donor hands over some large amount to the party, which then within days hands over precisely the same amount to candidate?
Why not just let ‘er rip, and allow unlimited giving by any American person or voluntary assemblage thereof, with instant full disclosure?
Danny_K // Jan 22, 2010 at 2:36 pm
David, you haven’t noticed yet that this is a disaster, not just for Dems, but for Republican reformers like you, too. Remember the K Street Project and the corrosive effect it had on leadership, when politicians were rising and falling based on their ties to big funders and not on their personal qualities or ideas? Well, Citizens United is like the K Street Project on steroids, and it will never go away. Any big corporation can give enough to protect its favorite incumbent from challenges for as long as they’re useful. Senators and congressmen and judges will be de facto sponsored by big corporations, just like professional athletes. Who needs new ideas when you’ve got a sugar daddy? That leaves Frum out in the cold. It also, as people have pointed out, allows the Saudis to write our anti-terrorism laws via Aramco, the Chinese to write our trade policy via a host of state-owned companies, even Frum’s favorite politician, Hugo Chavez, gets to vote now using CitGo.
The ordinary American citizen is stuck outside with his nose pressed against the glass, but the the Tea Party movement also suffered a grievous blow: last week, the Brown moneybomb was a deadly weapon in the service of conservative rebellion. Today, a million-dollar moneybomb can be trivially matched by an interested party. This will serve to keep the incumbents even more attached to their special big-money interests.
By the way, before you accuse me of concern trolling, I’m really not. I think the Dems are screwed even worse.
Weekend Links - Ross Douthat Blog - NYTimes.com // Jan 22, 2010 at 3:22 pm
[...] Frum proposes an alternative path to campaign-finance [...]
LoachDriver // Jan 22, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Although I voted for John & Sarah in ‘08 I long was unhappy with McCainFeingold because I understood it to be an incumbents’ protection act and learned it restricted the right of Pro-Lifers such as I via the Nat’l Right-to-Life Cmte & the American Life League to express our opinions about politicians & legislation.
That most of McCain/Feingold has been struck down by SCOTUS I consider a trmendous victory for free speech and I’m totally unimpressed by complaints about corporations spending on political speech. Well, both the Nat’l Right-to-Life Cmte. & the American Life League are corporations. So is the N.R.A. Likewise the Boy Scouts.
sinz54 // Jan 22, 2010 at 3:33 pm
balconesfault: Part of the answer is just to stipulate that any entity which is going to use this public good must provide free airtime during election season to candidates who meet specific thresholds. And not just 3 am or 11 am advertising slots – but prime time on TV, and drive time on radio.
That might have been worth discussing–30 years ago.
But cable TV, satellite TV, and the Internet have rendered that sort of thing moot. Most folks don’t receive TV over the air anymore. And the FCC has no jurisdiction over the “cablewaves”–as witness “Max After Dark” on Cinemax.
The Nielsen ratings for CBS/NBC/ABC have been declining steadily. This year, a show that got a 13 share in the Nielsen ratings was considered a major hit. And about 70% of those viewers watched it on cable.
BTW, in the just concluded MA Senate race, cableTV news stations like Fox News and CNN were flooded with campaign ads. The FCC can’t do anything about that.
sinz54 // Jan 22, 2010 at 3:36 pm
teabag:
I’m all for full disclosure. Congress should definitely pass laws mandating that any corporation that sponsors ANY type of ad must disclose its involvement.
Isn’t that enough?
Once I find out that Joe Kennedy’s Citgo gets its oil from Chavez in Venezuela, I’m free to boycott all Citgo stations and products.
Isn’t that good enough?
teabag // Jan 22, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Sinz.
Yes I do see danger. Corporations are now not just citizens they are Super-citizens. With the money at their disposal they have a fantastic advantage to drive the agenda both by buying airtime and by giving directly to candidates for office.
So in effect it is possible for them to own the message and the means of delivering their agenda.
We have made great strides in the protection of the environment from pollution (great lakes for example) this will cause a return to the bottom in many areas such as regulation of banking, drugs, agriculture, banking, investment and so on.
The corporations sure will not have the same end view in mind as normal flesh and blood citizens in regards to these areas. They want profit before anything, so if they own the politicians they control the framework.
balconesfault // Jan 22, 2010 at 4:25 pm
BTW, in the just concluded MA Senate race, cableTV news stations like Fox News and CNN were flooded with campaign ads. The FCC can’t do anything about that.
Sinz – the problem isn’t that someone with money can flood the airwaves.
It’s that it takes immense amounts of money to get your message any viewing/hearing at all in a market like Boston.
My proposal isn’t aimed at limiting free speech … rather, it’s aimed at making sure that there is some measure of FREE speech for messages which have a certain level of broad support – and that that speech gets broadcast over the public airwaves.