US Supreme Court Expected Political Ad Transparency 617
T Murphy writes "The Supreme Court, when ruling that corporate and union political donations were allowed under free speech, assumed the source of the donation would be disclosed immediately under current donation laws. Due to loopholes, this has not been the case, eliminating the hoped-for transparency the Supreme Court ruled to be vital to democracy. Justice Kennedy, who sided with the majority on the ruling, has been called naive for his expectation that there would be greater transparency. In the meantime, campaign spending for House candidates alone is expected to reach $1.5 billion."
Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Kennedy has always attempted to be a fair mediator between the left and right impulses on the Court. But he really blew it on this one. His attempt at moderation in this case has taken an already out-of-control problem and made it much worse. This ruling will ensure that individual citizens are forevermore completely and totally drowned out in our government by corporate interests and their puppet foundations/non-profits. It was almost that way *already*, but now the big interests won't even have to *try* to hide their bribery. And, thanks to this, nothing short of a Constitutional amendment will ever stop corporate control of the government now (and good luck getting a 2/3's majority in a Congress owned by those corporations). Thanks Anthony!
Re:This was obvious. (Score:5, Insightful)
When they made the ruling, I agreed with their judicial logic, but that was a case where very clearly the ruling was not in the good of the general population.
The Supreme Court needs to concerns itself with protecting the rights of the individual, not the good of the general population. Otherwise we'll end up with a tyranny of the majority.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you read the same Citizens United ruling that I did? Did you read then Solicitor General Kagan's argument that basically said "Yeah, this legislation gives the Feds the power to ban books, but that's irrelevant because we would never do such a thing."? The 1st amendment says plainly enough that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. The old law prohibited Citizens United from publishing a film about a political candidate within a certain timeframe preceding a Federal election. Such a law is not compatible with the 1st amendment if free speech is to have any meaning.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
This ruling will ensure that individual citizens are forevermore completely and totally drowned out in our government by corporate interests and their puppet foundations/non-profits.
The individual citizen is always going to be drowned out in a democracy. The biggest gang wins. That what Democracy is.
Very few people have won elections without the help of large groups. People must form large groups to get anywhere. As a legal convenience, these groups become corporations by incorporating.
The AARP is a corporation. The NEA is a corporation. The AFL/CIO is a corporation. The NAACP is a corporation. They're all groups of like-minded people that would be nothing if they couldn't act together (and spend together) as a unit.
Re:Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
To play devil's advocate here, if that's the case...what's their motivation? They've already been granted lifetime appointments, why would they need to give in to the demands/wishes of special interests or politicians?
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:1, Insightful)
So free speech only applies to selected bodies? Unions can exercise all the political exertion they want but corporations can't? We're in a much better position today where it's everyone for themselves instead of selectively legislating who does and doesn't have first amendment rights.
And no, corporations don't run government, stupid people do. They are called politicians and they are more than happy to pass your tax dollars off to their buddies.
It's time to take government out of the equation in our society and back to being 5% or less of GDP like it used to be, simplify the laws so they apply equally to everyone...the others should be thrown out wholesale.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:4, Insightful)
So free speech only applies to selected bodies? Unions can exercise all the political exertion they want but corporations can't?
Some corporations can. The people who are outraged over Citizens United never found the time to complain when the for-profit New York Times was endorsing political candidates.
Easy fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Contributions may only come from registered voters (and with the current $2000 limit)
That would exclude money from corporations.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
Kagan said no such thing.
McCain-Feingold kept "**corporations** and **unions** from using their __general treasury funds__ to make an "electioneering communication" or for "independent expenditures," defined as speech that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a candidate and that is made independently of a candidate's campaign."
The Supreme Court said that corporations and unions must be treated as individuals. This is a radical extension of corporate power that is almost unknown in the rest of the world, and certainly something our Founders would be shocked to find.
We accept refugees (if not Randy Quaid) (Score:3, Insightful)
Every US election cycle, I get more proud of Canada. My latest warm fuzzy? There was a nice article in Maclean's (our Newsweek) a few months ago about Beverly Mclachlin, our Chief Justice for the last 10 years, and the various notable decisions of the Mclachlin court. It's only because of that article I know her name, and I can't name any of the other eight.
Whereas, just from news spillover, I can probably name most of the SCOTUS, because every confirmation and a dozen decisions every year are so politically charged. Polarized pitched battles seem to infuse every branch of the US governments, at every level. Quite frankly, it sounds exhausting.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
If it weren't for anonymous political speech we wouldn't have the Federalist papers.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you read the same Citizens United ruling that I did? Did you read then Solicitor General Kagan's argument that basically said "Yeah, this legislation gives the Feds the power to ban books, but that's irrelevant because we would never do such a thing."? The 1st amendment says plainly enough that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. The old law prohibited Citizens United from publishing a film about a political candidate within a certain timeframe preceding a Federal election. Such a law is not compatible with the 1st amendment if free speech is to have any meaning.
I laughed when I learned that Micheal Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11M was used to attack the old law. Under the old law, Fahrenheit could have been banned during the 30 days before the 2004 election as a form of electioneering.
It wasn't banned, of course, and that made arguing against the old law even easier because it suggested that the state could pick and choose what speech to ban and what speed to allow and that created a fear that the state under the old law would manipulate the political conversation.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:4, Insightful)
>
The Supreme Court said that corporations and unions must be treated as individuals. This is a radical extension of corporate power that is almost unknown in the rest of the world, and certainly something our Founders would be shocked to find.
Just because people chose to exercise their right to assemble into a group, does not mean they have to give up their other rights. The Corporation only has the powers of the individuals that own it.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is you're assuming the corporations are controlled by a large group.
I'm sure that in some cases, if not most, these decisions are ultimately made by one or a few with all the power of the many. Just because a corporation is composed of thousands of workers or owned by thousands of investors doesn't mean that these people have any control. Moreover, most of these corporations are not formed for political purposes or around political ideas.
I'd be surprised if I read a story of any of these million dollar corporations holding a vote amongst shareholders whether and to whom they should donate a political contribution.
Undemocratic (Score:3, Insightful)
Democracy can only function properly when it's a one man-one vote system where every man and vote has the same bearing on the outcome.
This level playing field is seriously out of balance because of the present donations by companies, organisations and rich individuals.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:2, Insightful)
Until the 'owners' of a corporation can be imprisoned for crimes they are not equal to 'citizens' and should not get the same level of rights.
The individuals involved already have their rights, they don't get to buy multiple votes.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
The individual citizen is always going to be drowned out in a democracy. The biggest gang wins. That what Democracy is.
There's a saying that goes, "Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."
Re:Easy fix (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not hypothetical. There are organisations that exist for exactly that purpose. For example, the FRC is a tax-exempt organisation promoting 'traditional family values' and all that general social conservative stuff - but, as a tax exempt organisation, they can't actually donate to any candidate. So they founded FRC Action, an open lobbying organisation that is not tax-exempt. Now FRC action does the actual donating, and the FRC itsself does... well, everything else, thus keeping it all shielded from tax.
They were just the first example that came to mind. I'm sure there are plenty - on the left, on the right, and just on the side of maximising profits.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't people banding together, the problem is that they're allowed to pump money into the system to push their agenda.
I don't think we're going to have anything resembling a fair democracy until we restrict politicians to public funding.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
Union spending is pretty clear on disclosure, it comes from the members. Where does Americans for Prosperity's funding? that's the problem.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing that makes it believable is the rash of other outrageous -- I will go so far as to say stupid -- Supreme Court decisions recently. I won't go into those, but even so I suspect the older members of the Supreme Court of gradually increasing senility, and the newer members of not having properly studied history... in addition to being overly-politically-motivated. Properly speaking, politics should carry no weight in court decisions. I know that is an idealistic dream, but still that is the ideal.
The thing that makes this ruling by the Supreme Court so outrageous on its face is that corporations simply don't have "rights". They have the legal privilege of acting in business matters as a person. That is all. They do not have a "right" to vote, they do not have a "right" to bear arms, they do not have a "right" to free speech! Sure, individuals within corporations have the right of free speech, but that is not the same thing, and restricting corporate donations does not infringe on that right.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
Not vote multiple times, but if the people of the assembled group wanted to base their vote on a collective decision, then there isn't anything that should stop such a thing.
Did you just invent unions?
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
The New York Times is a for-profit corporation that's been endorsing political candidates for decades.
Re:simple fix (Score:4, Insightful)
I see, so you think it's OK to limit someone's freedoms because they have more wealth than you? Please explain how that's right or fair. And please don't bother with inane utilitarian concepts of "the greater good". You aren't Jeremy Bentham and you're not going to make a more cogent argument than he ever could.
I'm going to say this again, and more clearly and forcefully: it is immoral to trample on one person's rights because you think other people will be somehow better off if you do so. The fact of the matter is, those people will not be better off as we all suffer when rights are sacrificed for convenience or good feelings.
Re:Easy fix (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft could set up a shell group called "Concerned Citizens for Software Freedom" and funnel money into it to buy a million political ads that trashed a candidate running against a candidate they liked.
Yeah, so? Why are you so worried about speech?
Re:This was obvious. (Score:4, Insightful)
You spelled "plutocracy [wikipedia.org]" incorrectly.
Increasingly, it looks like the U.S. is a republic in name only. These groups spend money on advertising because they believe it's effective and they are probably right. Effectively, the United States is allowing it's wealthiest citizens to buy the laws they favor.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell me any reasonable way to parse the difference between the two that is *not* incredibly open to political abuse. Tell me how to keep the regulatory structure immune from every political lobbying group pressuring the justice department. Tell me what justifies giving some giant faceless corporations (the New York Times, Fox News, Time Warner) the right to make political statements and not others.
There is no clear line to draw and no clean way to draw it. This is why the first amendment exists - rather than risk creating a regulatory structure that is incredibly open to abuse, we open speech up to everyone and every thing and leave it up to the voter to parse out the bad speech.
Re:This was obvious. (Score:3, Insightful)
Most political advertising aims primarily at influencing swing voters - die-hard supporters of either party are unlikely to be affected.
That said, due to the "close call" nature of national elections in US, relatively few votes can often decide the outcome. So even with completely atrocious spending per affected vote, it may well be worth it.
Re:Easy fix (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is incredibly more dangerous than, say, Michael Bloomberg funneling money into "Americans for Safe Streets" and running a bunch of political ads...
http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail_donors.php?ein=263516710&cycle=2008 [opensecrets.org]
All those opposed to Citizens United are saying is that only the rich should be able to buy free speech.
Alito: "Not True": TRUE (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in January 2010, Obama gave the State of the Union right after the Court handed down the Citizens United decision. Obama told Congress, with several of the Supremes sitting in the front row, that the decision would allow foreign corporations to influence US elections, which most Americans still realize is a terrible development. Justice Alito, who had just decided in the majority to allow corporations "free speech" by spending unlimited money in US political campaigning, was mad: he angrily mouthed [nydailynews.com] "not true". The corporate mass media attacked Obama for "picking on the justices" by warning Congress and "embarrassing" the court, but of course failed to examine whether it was true.
Less than a year later, we see it was totally true. We see that foreign corporations have invested huge amounts of money campaigning in the 2010 election. Republican candidates have gotten hundreds of $millions spent to elect them, sponsored by corporations [corpwatch.org] including many foreign ones. The "US" Chamber of Commerce (Inc.) collects money from lots of foreign corporations [thinkprogress.org], especially Indian ones that want US jobs shipped there, foreign banks like Credit Suisse and HSBC that want financial reform repealed, and even corporations owned by foreign kings, like the Emir of Bahrain. Foreign kings are spending more in US election campaigns than US citizens.
Whether you think that's OK or not (it is very not OK), Alito was totally wrong. And a jerk about it. Not surprising, since Alito was installed by Bush. Alito swore in his Senate confirmation hearings that he would respect established law, but his Citizens United decision overturned lots of established law, went against the basic understanding that corporations are not people, and recklessly unleashed foreign corporate power on US election campaigns.
He should be impeached. Then he'll be free to skip the State of the Union [wonkette.com] the way he plans to from now on because he can't stand criticism of his abominable rulings.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:4, Insightful)
The intent was that Congress would not be in the position of regulating speech.
Why are you so afraid of unfettered speech anyway? Is your opinion of the American electorate so low that you think they need to be shielded from this speech and can't form their own opinions about it?
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easy fix (Score:2, Insightful)
An individual's right to political free speech, in practical terms, is marginalized and ultimately ceases to exist if giant groups of people (corporations/unions/etc.) can wield that same power on a much, much larger/louder scale without the corresponding limits and drawbacks of individuality.
I wasn't aware that the 1st amendment had a fairness doctrine attached to it.
Maybe your hypothetical individual should group with like minded people to convey his message more effectively?
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>if the people of the assembled group wanted to base their vote on a collective decision, then there isn't anything that should stop such a thing.
But that is still Individuals exercising individual, Human rights.
That doesn't mean the corporation should have the right to cast ~100,000 votes on behalf of its employees.
Neither should said corporation have the right to hire lobbyists to speak on behalf of its employees.
If they employees want to hire lobbyists, let them do it on an individual basis, while the corporation remain as silent as a rock, tree, or building.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:4, Insightful)
A 'business' does not meet the definition of such a group. A political action group is specifically created to champion the political agenda of it's members and it makes perfect sense that these should have the ability to do so as their members expressly joined such groups for that purpose, and donated money to such groups for that purpose.
A business on the other hand does not take it's employee's opinion into account when they spend corporate money on political action campaigns. I certainly can't tell my company where to spend it's money. I have no voice at all, other than taking a drastic step of leaving my job, and risking my own health and welfare to do so.
The ruling was bad, on all fronts. It is not free speech for a corporation to use it's coffers to 'speak' for employees who in turn have no control over where that money goes.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the point I was going to make.
The problem is still with the organization of corporations. The management isn't at fault, because they're just the hired guns doing the will of the owners (stockholders). The stockholders aren't at fault because there's so many of them you could never apportion blame, and they can't know the ins-and-outs of every action taken by the corporation. Basically, no one is to blame (officially...when Target donates 150k to a politician the CEO likes, everyone knows exactly who to go after...but how're you gonna fire him? If more than 50% of the stock is owned by institutional investors who only trade based on price, and he continues to make the price better, you can't get rid of him...)
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is getting results from spending small amounts of money. We're now in a situation where massive amounts have to be spent to bribe anyone.
Clearly it is an uphill battle to take the corrupting influence of money out of the political process.
Given the ineffectiveness of controls on the cash going in, perhaps the public could be better served and more quickly so by changes limiting where the cash can go. Do away with paid radio/tv political ads entirely.
The broadcast industry has had major deregulation, some of it very harmful to the concept of stations serving the public interest. The FCC should take steps to diversify ownership of broadcast stations, and to have licensees that live within the coverage area of stations they own. Stations make plenty of money as it is. There's no reason why they can't operate with NO paid political advertising, carrying only non-paid public service broadcasts informing the public of issues and candidates of concern to their audience. The current situation with sometimes unknown interests outside the community of license controlling the information (or more often disinformation) flow is totally unacceptable.
The old method where broadcasters have no mandatory amount of public service time, nor a cap on the amount of ad time, should be returned. Broadcasters would commit to numbers for both in their license applications, and report on both for the prior license period. As before, two weeks of the year of the licensees choosing would be exempt from the self-imposed limits. (typically they were holiday and election ad periods). Stations doing a poor job with either too little public service, or too much advertising would be in an unfavorable light should someone else wish to protest license renewal. In theory, with deregulation, market forces (competition) was suppose to naturally lead broadcasters to do the right things, but that has been a dismal failure. We got infomercials, ad time going from around 10 minutes an hour to 18 or 20, many of the public service announcements run in the middle of the night. Much news on local newscasts is actually of a non-local nature or duplicated on other stations under common ownership.
The dismal situation with station operating and ownership has many far reaching effects on society.
Quality entertainment programming is less viable with so many ads, the public has become more ignorant, large scale commercial interests are favored over local business, depth and diversity of news coverage has seriously suffered. People blogging on the net make contributions, but the net is not a substitute for funded transparent news operations. Indeed it is trivial to cook up a website to distribute misinformation or support others doing so.
Broadcasters making a profit is fine, but the MUST be held to acting as trustees of the public interest. Their function is too important to allow the greed of anything goes for a profit to be allowed. Make broadcasters accountable to the people IN THE COMMUNITIES THEY ARE LICENSED TO.
Re:Easy fix (Score:3, Insightful)
I wasn't aware that the 1st amendment had a fairness doctrine attached to it.
It doesn't, but it wasn't written with monolithic corporations as people, unions, or mass media in mind, either.
Note, I'm not arguing what the law actually is, only what it should be if you don't want to be living in a cyberpunk novel minus the cool technology in twenty years.
Maybe your hypothetical individual should group with like minded people to convey his message more effectively?
So you'd like America to be run as an Asian MMO. If you don't have more people and more money, who cares what you think?
To me, that's not only a terrible idea, it's actually unAmerican.
Re:Easy fix (Score:3, Insightful)
Easier fix: all funding must come from the gov't, in equal (and relatively small) amounts for each candidate. Offer each candidate who gets the required number of signatures to be on the ballot, a set amount of TV time, a set amount of ad money, and tell everyone else to butt the fuck out of the process.
I *like* this plan, and have always liked it, but it seems to run afoul of the first amendment. You can't prevent people (or, apparently, corporations) from endorsing candidates, and getting together in groups to form support coalitions for candidates, without stepping on their freedom of speech. Likewise, you can't stop them spending their money advertising in favor of a candidate, without stepping on the freedom of the press to print whatever they want (or are paid to print.) So how do we implement something that does restrict one or both of those, for the greater good of the democratic process, without hacking the first amendment into tiny bloody pieces?
Re:simple fix (Score:1, Insightful)
How is that true? That is the definition of laws: that society will limit an individual rights for the greater good. Or is the fact that one can't go on a murderous rampage without legal penalty an individual rights travesty?
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Corporations, as an entity made up of people, have just as many rights to speech as any other "entity made up of people". Trade unions, for example.
If the National Education Association can dump tons of money into campaigns, and the SEIU (Oregon state employee union), and the UAW, then so should GM and other corporations be able to do so.
We currently have an incumbent who is painting his opponent as "bought and paid for" because his campaign got a few thousand from a company while the rest of his money came in $100 and similar donations from a large number of people. The incumbent, however, is backed by many of the large unions and has gotten the vast majority of his money from them. Bought and paid for, he says?
Now, you may claim that the unions are speaking with the voice of the members, but that is far from true. They speak with the voice of the leadership. The members are lucky if they can get their politically-based dues back without repercussions.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but NYT isn't handing candidates millions of dollars to flood hundreds of media outlets.
The problem isn't one private entity giving their one word, but one private entity speaking as if it were a thousand voices in a thousand places.
On the playground we called it cheating.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Voting is not a "right", it is a function of democracy
The 15th, 19th and 26th amendments to the US Constitution seem to disagree with you. Each of them begins with "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged".
You are a moron.
Oh...Troll...nevermind... sorry I fed you.
Re:Only problem with the ruling (Score:3, Insightful)
Two things which make your assessment invalid:
There is nothing in the constitution which defines corporations as citizens with 1st amendment rights. That is an artifact of judicial decisions and law on the books. Get rid of corporations (which reducing liability for shareholders), or make the shareholders criminally liable for actions of the company and we can talk about giving corporations more rights. If you were to strictly interpret the constitiution, any group that took money from non-citizens should be exluded from the political process. If a company feels its shareholders are best represented by a certain political movement, then it should hand out a special divadend and send a note to the shareholders suggesting they give the money to a specific cause. And if that shareholder is a mutual fund, then the fund should do the same. At the end of the day, the decision to give money to a political campaign or cause should be done by the individual.
"People form groups, corporations, unions, non-profits, and the like, to give more weight to their voice"
People do not form corporations to give more weight to their voice. They form corporations to make money.
While you may not like it because it does not fit in a shoe box, some groups ARE different than others. The charter of a union for instance makes it clear that their role is to represent the needs/welfare of their members. Same with an advocacy group such as NOW, various pro life groups, environmental groups, etc. A corporation has no such requirement. They exist ONLY to make money for their shareholders. They are duty bound to try to make money without regard to morality, but only by ethics and, in theory, within the laws of the land. That is it. Non monetary considerations cannot be taken into account BY LAW. A union also wants its members to get more money, but they also have the flexibility to look at other issues which may influence their decision. Advocacy groups are more flexible as well.
citizens United was a bad decision on its face. By giv
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
they do not have a "right" to bear arms
You know that's an interesting point. It's a completely logical extension of "Corporations have Free Speech rights", to "Corporations have all first amendment rights". Corporations with "freedom of religious expression" make me a little scared (could be an interesting end run around civil rights legislation), but there's definitely a sufficient conflict between the individual rights of employees and the "rights" of the corporation to make that at least a less likely problem. It's not a big logical step from there to "Corporations have the right to bear arms". That's a scary idea.
Slippery slope arguments are often silly and convoluted, but in this case it's really *not* a huge jump from "Corporations have *this* Constitutional Right" to "Corporations have all Constitutional rights". One really does imply the other. Of course there's lots of interpretation to be done on what it would *mean* that Corporations have these rights (I mean, they're not cognizant sent entities with a single opinion), but the idea that they do *have* them is a short logical jump from this decision. That's more than a bit concerning.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should owners of the corporation be not liable?
If you really want corporate behavior to change, you've got to re-link the investors (owners) with the actions (and consequences of those actions) done by the corporation.
The way it stands now, corporate officers and directors are scapegoats for owners. This is one reason why they get paid such a ridiculous amount -- if the shit hits the fans, it's the officers and directors who are in the legal line of fire, while the owners merely take a hit to their portfolios.
Re:Completely missing the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
The fundamental problem is people actually paying attention to TV political ads. What we need is voting reform in the form of massive civics and logic education. Teach people to cast a vote based on their own research & conclusions and not an error laden, buzzword filled TV ad that plays on people's emotions.
I like this idea; unfortunately, logic and civics are widely known to have a liberal bias, so it would be very difficult to bring either of these into our public education system.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:1, Insightful)
I see no reason to allow corporations to have the ability to speak on political issues.
You do realize that the NRA, AFL-CIO, ACLU, Sierra Club, AARP, etc, are all corporations, right?
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed.
Here's a fun question for people who think corporations have 'rights': Corporations have to have stated businesses purposes that are authorized by the state.
The state can dissolve corporations that do not follow said purpose. In practice, they only do this to non-profits, as the stated purposes of for-profit businesses is generally 'make money', but in actuality they can do it to any corporation.
What if the state refused to allow such corporations to exist that either a) stated they were for using raised money for political purposes, or b) used money for those purposes without stating it?
The second is clearly allowed...the government can dissolve businesses that spend their money on anything outside the scope of a business. Try starting a corporation and having it pay for your vacation. You can't do that, so why would it be allowed to pay for political campaigning?
Businesses have to spend money on businesses expenses, even if it's 'your' business. You want to do something with the money, the business has to pay you income or dividends or something, and then you can do it.
As for the first, a business with the hypothetical goals of pushing an political agenda...well, firstly, such for-profit businesses don't exist, or at least aren't really the giant multi-national businesses that have injected so much money in our political process.
But an argument could be made that, if they do have that as a business goal, then running political ads is a 'business expense'.
Of course, governments don't have to approve business licenses in the first place. So could just decide not to allow any business with political goals they don't like.
You fools see the problem of a government created entity having free speech rights? The government has power of life and death over corporations already, for pretty much any reason. The idea that a fictional entity the government creates has 'rights' the government can't infringe is sheer nonsense.
Frankly, I'm wish Al Franken's bill would get considered again. It required businesses to get permission from all owners before doing political campaigning. (It is, after all, spending their money, and the internal structure of how a corporation operates is certainly subject to law.) Which would be hilariously impossible in a publicly-traded company.
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're resting on the assumption that all groupings of people are created equal. I'm not sure I agree with that.
A corporation is given specific benefits and expected to abide by specific rules. It does not transiently acqurie all the rights or responsibilities of the indivuals who make it up, and in particular an individual's right to expression cannot be exercised by leveraging corporate assets to which he or she might have access.
Each corporation has a stated purpose for existing (though typically the founders keep this as broad as is legally acceptable), its assets are held to be used only in acceptable ways to advance that purpose, and the government has every right and interest in constraining what ways are acceptable.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
relatively few people who own the corporation
I believe you mean 'run'. A lot of corporations are owned by a hell of a lot of people, aka, stockholders
That's why I like Franken's bill, which required all owners of a corporations to agree before political campaigning, thus resulting it being functionally impossible for publicly-owned companies.
And it's functionally impossible for a reason no one can argue with. If I own stock in a company, I clearly should get a say before they use my money for an expense that isn't slightly a 'business expense'. The company exist to make me money, period. All spending of the company should go towards that goal, period.
Sadly, people managed to killed that bill.
It's possible illegal anyway. Witness Murdoch asserting that he used News Corps as a personal piggy bank to make a million dollar donation to a friend.
That's outright illegal, and in any sane universe ought to result in shareholders winning a lawsuit. Sadly, News Corps in incorporated in Delaware, not in a sane universe.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Far from it. That is why I did not say one word about voluntary collaborations of people formed for specifically political purposes.
Unions are, for the most part, involuntary groupings formed based on employment or occupation, having no political purpose behind them. No, "collective bargaining" is not a political purpose, it is a commercial one.
Then the same rules should apply to an individual who has access to union dues. Those are just as much "corporate assets" as "company money", and in many cases less so. If I own a company then those corporate assets are, indeed, mine.
Each corporation has a stated purpose for existing ...
Just as each union has.
That's your opinion, but not the law. I suggest you contact Ben and Jerry's and tell them that their donations to civic causes are not allowed because they do not fall within the scope of "ice cream business". Or Progressive Insurance, which has that name not because they sell progressive insurance.
Again, your opinion. In my opinion, the government has no right, and indeed no Constitutional authority, to tell me that I cannot spend the corporate assets of a company I own in any way I see fit. And for the potential pedant, I'll add "that is legal for any other citizen to spend his money."
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
In today's world, an integral part of a democracy is the rule of law. And if the law says that sheep can't be dinner, then it shouldn't matter how many wolves there are because there's not going to be a vote.
Of course there's going to be a vote - a vote on laws (or rather, on politicians who write laws). If you have enough wolves, the law will just say that sheep are dinner.
Re:simple fix (Score:3, Insightful)
First, this is a strawman:
I see, so you think it's OK to limit someone's freedoms because they have more wealth than you? Please explain how that's right or fair.
And an appeal to authority:
And please don't bother with inane utilitarian concepts of "the greater good". You aren't Jeremy Bentham and you're not going to make a more cogent argument than he ever could.
And now you conflate rights and money. It's fine that they are the same to you. Others disagree, and therefore your definition of "moral" will be different from theirs.
I'm going to say this again, and more clearly and forcefully: it is immoral to trample on one person's rights because you think other people will be somehow better off if you do so. The fact of the matter is, those people will not be better off as we all suffer when rights are sacrificed for convenience or good feelings.
You can be as "clear" and "forceful" as you like, but simply stating that it's true because you say so (or Bentham says so) is not gonna convince anyone who doesn't already agree with you.
We can trample rights as you say, and we do it all the time. It is neither moral or immoral, but reflects the fact that in some ways we are subject to the will of the rest of society, like it or not. I suspect you don't like it in many cases. In other cases, you probably are fine with it. Same here.
Re:Alito: "Not True": TRUE (Score:3, Insightful)
No, impeachment is a political institution, which is why it originates in the House and is decided in the Senate, with the only Judicial Branch involvement being the Chief Justice presiding over the Senate "trial", but with no jurisprudential power other than what the Congress votes to give them in the specific case.
It is reserved for "high crimes and misdemeanors". Misdemeanors are mismanagement or misleadership [etymonline.com] in the language of the day.
The goal of Republicans is indeed to impeach Obama, as they have said throughout his term. Just like they impeached Clinton, to paralyze the elected government (a frequent Republican priority). Just because Republicans abuse impeachment to override electoral politics doesn't mean that impeachment isn't still correct when an official abuses their power. In the case of Supreme Court justices, impeachment is the only way to check their power when they abuse it. Just because we haven't impeached and removed justices before doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Indeed, the corrupt and dysfunctional condition of our officials shows we impeach far too infrequently - the lack of precedent argues for more impeachment, not less.
The actual harm is that foreign corporations, foreign monarchs, are exercising more influence in American elections than nearly all Americans can. Not to mention the adequately unacceptable influence in elections of American corporations. None of which is acceptable in a national democracy - corporations aren't people.
The simple fact is that you are a Republican, so you don't want to see fellow Republicans impeached. An exclusively political reason that you are dressing up in neutralized terms, but which protects Republicans. At all costs.
Re:Alito: "Not True": TRUE (Score:3, Insightful)
Obama's "outrageous claims" in his SotU are now proven exactly true. But you Republicans don't care about the truth, or America's sovereignty. You care only about getting power, and using it for your corporate sponsors.
There is no room for even $1 spent in American elections by foreign corporations and foreign kings. Putting it in scare quotes doesn't change the unacceptable nature.
You Republicans love to talk about protecting the US from foreign influence, until it pays for your party to win elections. After being so wrong in every way for so long, you Republicans really should take a break from pretending you're competent in governing this country. Your reliance on foreign corporate and monarchial investment to get more power shows you're not.
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
How so? Do you understand that there are corporations that are based on religion operations? How does the freedom of expression of a corporation in any way limit your civil rights?
It's not a big logical step from there to "Corporations have the right to bear arms". That's a scary idea.
How, exactly, does a "corporation" bear arms? Do you mean the people working at a corporation? Yes, they still have their individual rights. They do not lose their inalienable rights when they are hired.
Do you mean "bear arms as part of the corporate operation"? Briggs and Wells Fargo and other armored car services come to mind as corporations that "bear arms" in that sense. Do those corporations scare you? I don't believe that the individuals in that corporation bear arms in violation to laws applicable to individuals, but I can't testify to that. I'm rarely scared by a passing fellow with a gun and a moneybag. YMMV.
Or do you mean the corporation can "bear arms" in some other way? The Remington corporation comes to mind as a corporation that "bears arms" in a generic way -- boxes and boxes and boxes of guns sitting in warehouses. So too, Walmart, K-Mart, Bi-Mart, Gander Mountain, and any other retail corporation that stocks them.
Slippery slope arguments are often silly and convoluted, but in this case it's really *not* a huge jump from "Corporations have *this* Constitutional Right" to "Corporations have all Constitutional rights". One really does imply the other.
I am most disturbed not by the idea that corporations have the rights, but the idea that it is a "slippery slope" to think that having one right means one has them all. Yes, having one right means one has them all. That's part of them being "inalienable".
It is a rare human being who has "a single opinion", or even unchangeable opinions. If we make a "unified, consistent set of opinions" a litmus test for having rights, we've removed any concept of "inalienable" or even "rights".
And, if we make "unified opinion" a litmus test for "corporate" rights, we eliminate trade unions from the playing field of political speech, since the members of such unions rarely, if ever, have a single opinion about any political action.
Re:simple fix (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Alito: "Not True": TRUE (Score:3, Insightful)
If you agree with Obama effectively heckling the Supreme Court during the State of the Union you should equally be OK with Joe Wilson calling Obama a liar.
When Obama has the floor, he can criticize anyone he wants. When Joe Wilson has the floor, he can criticize anyone he wants. See how that works?
Both break decorum and insult the offices of the respective individuals.
Nothing breaks decorum and insults the office more than the absolutely appalling standard of work coming out of the Supreme Court. If you don't want the Supreme Court criticized during the State of the Union, then stop the Supreme Court from damaging the state of our union.
Re:simple fix (Score:3, Insightful)
I see, so you think it's OK to limit someone's freedoms because they have more wealth than you?
Yep, that's what a society is. Always has been, always will be. Society is for the schumck that can't afford security guards, but can obey laws, contribute, and live better than a peasant. Society is for the middle class, and if you don't like it go start your own country, or move to the Mexican side of the border, that's close enough to lawlessness.
Re:simple fix (Score:3, Insightful)
No, society is for the rich. It's hard to stay rich when you're paying for your own security. Society lets you offload that cost onto the lower classes through taxes. Maintaining the appearance of influence makes it a lot less likely that you'll need that security too.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:1, Insightful)
And in every issue the names of the Editors and Publisher are printed plain as day.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
It is actually all about money.
Imagine party A plans to make a law that would tax the ultra-wealthy more and give some tax breaks to middle and low income earners, but party B would like to do the opposite.
A few hundred millionaires can easily communicate and coordinate to make a company and write a 5 million USD check each to campaign against party A so that the law is stopped, because they know that this is less than half of what this law will cost them each year. And they can easily afford doing that.
The couple hundred million people with low to medium income on the other hand have it much harder to organize and can't really afford to make companies or donate much to politics, because they need to put food on the table.
Citizen United ruling makes it possible for a few hundred millionaires to out-spend and out-campaign the few hundred million other people. It allows 0.01% of people the power to freely and anonymously manipulate and basically buy the political process against the interests of the overwhelming majority of 99.99% of the population. That is NOT right.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
Dude, the freedom of speech is not the same thing as the freedom to lie about your identity.
So you don't think that anonymous political speech is protected by the 1st amendment? Why aren't you posting under your real name then?
There's a difference between anonymous speech and deceptive speech. I have the right to free speech, but that doesn't give me the right to slander someone. Nor does it give me the right to lie to a judge or other state representative. Why should a corporation be allowed to be involved in politics at all? Every owner of the corporation has that individual right, but the corporation itself is a government-created entity that exists only as a liability shield for the shareholders of the corporation. I see no reason why that should give it the right to take actions to influence the political decisions of the country.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
You're resting on the assumption that all groupings of people are created equal.
Far from it. That is why I did not say one word about voluntary collaborations of people formed for specifically political purposes.
Unions are, for the most part, involuntary groupings formed based on employment or occupation, having no political purpose behind them. No, "collective bargaining" is not a political purpose, it is a commercial one.
Collective bargaining is inherently political. Commerce is regulated by politics, and politics is influenced by commerce. And the power of the state is involved in any dispute between union and labor, e.g., the rights of labor to petition, contract matters, even the matter of obtaining a permit to picket. Before unions had political influence, the government would often come to the aid of companies in conflict with their workers. Think Department of Labor. Think Labor Day. Collective bargaining is nothing if not an exercise of political power.
Again, your opinion. In my opinion, the government has no right, and indeed no Constitutional authority, to tell me that I cannot spend the corporate assets of a company I own in any way I see fit. And for the potential pedant, I'll add "that is legal for any other citizen to spend his money."
A corporation is not the same as "your money". A corporation is an artificial, legal entity created by a state that has its own assets and its own liability. Most particularly, it can sue, be sued, own property, even go bankrupt, but the assets of the owners of the corporation are protected. Normally, only knowing commissions of fraud or crime are grounds to "break the corporate veil" and give plaintiffs access to an owners personal assets.
This is an extraordinary protection. And has absolutely no constitutional basis (but you're welcome to look for it yourself). Thus, the rights of a corporation are completely arbitrary, created by government and therefore changeable and may be regulated by government for any reason. States like Delaware and South Dakota, for example, are comparably lenient on corporations, thereby to be more attractive as a registration site.
In other words, a person, e.g., you, have the right to express yourself in any way you choose. But if you incorporate, and your corporation makes money, you do NOT inherently have the right to spend your corporate assets in any way you choose. You could, of course, pay yourself a big bonus and then do what you want with it, but there are rules regarding liabilities and your obligations to your co-owners. Throwing a $million birthday bash for your wife with corporate funds is not a good idea.
The abuse comes because one can incorporate anything. Most taxis in New York are owned by a hand-full of corporations. But if a taxi hits you and you sue, you will find yourself suing a tiny nothing-corporation with no assets other than that individual taxi; the assets of the parent corporation will be out of your reach. The same chicanery is applied to politics [nytimes.com].
The point is, the rights of a corporation have no constitutional basis. Really. Go and look for some. There is no language in the constitution pertinent to corporations (notice how many times the Constitution expressly says "person"), nor is there any evidence that the Founders considered corporations when framing the document. On the contrary, the matter of corporations was left entirely to the states until late in the 18th Century at the earliest.
No constitutional rights means free to regulate... speech, commerce, anything. And whocan argue that corporate speech isn't targeted, at least ultimately, to making a bigger buck? Hence, Kennedy and the Ro
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are going to assume something that will never happen, we might as well assume that the deficit is gone, everyone makes a million dollars a year, and that there is peace and joy all over the planet with no hunger and no pestilence. Gitmo is closed, we're out of Iraq/Afghanistan completely, Hamas and Israel are buddies, nobody ties bombs to their children and sends them to the local markets or on the bus, and sea levels/climate changes are stable and nonthreatening.
There aren't "very few unions left", and they will never be fully abolished. It would require a complete rewrite to the US Constitution for such a prohibition to occur.
But this is wandering far afield from my original comment. I was pointing out that if corporations do not have the right to donate money to political causes, then unions should lack the same right and have the same controls. That is an argument neither for nor against corporate/union campaign contributions, just an argument that the color you paint one naturally paints the other.
How do you feel about this law? Comfortable with it?
The law abolishing unions? Won't happen. There are too many unions and too much union money in play for that to ever happen.
Did you not notice how the UAW managed to get paid off by Mr. Obama at the expense of every stockholder in GM? There are a lot more stockholders of GM (and some of them are VERY rich) than there are union members. If the corporation was in charge, it wouldn't have happened.
Re:simple fix (Score:3, Insightful)
I see, so you think it's OK to limit someone's freedoms because they have more wealth than you?
No, I don't think it's OK to limit someone's freedoms because they have less wealth than you.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
Regular corporations would still not be permitted to donate to political influence activities.
So my local grocery store isn't allowed to publish a flier detailing how the new zoning law will impact them and their customers unless they go through the hassle of setting up a separate corporation for this purpose?
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
A bigger problem is that money == votes. How did that happen? People see a TV ad and their brain shuts down? They become incapable of deciding for themselves because, hey! TV!
In an ideal world, candidate spending wouldn't matter because voters wouldn't be influenced by it. We should keep that in mind as well, if we fixed that problem the problem of corporate spending on candidates just evaporates.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:3, Insightful)
If you ever talk to a lawyer about a contract in which the other party has left a clause in there that says "oh, this is just something we need to keep in there, but don't worry - we'd never actually USE it", I guarantee your lawyer will advise you that if that's what they're saying, then you should get that clause removed. Because if they're saying now they're never going to draw on it, but they want to leave it in anyway, it's because one day, they want to have the ability to use it.
Our lawyers have always advised us in contract negotiations to keep an eye out for anything like this and make sure those things are removed - the entire point of a legal contract is to clearly outline what you can and can't do, so we ensure people we sign contracts with put their money where their mouth is and that we don't have to rely on their "word" when it comes to enforcing selective clauses.
Re:Kennedy's folly and sad legacy (Score:1, Insightful)
> Why are you so afraid of unfettered speech anyway?
Because the courts keep ruling that money counts as speech. Thus people with money have MORE speech. People who control businesses then have even more money to command, and thus even more speech. And things that would generally be considered lies (or I suppose in the context of fake "I'm a real person who thinks X" ads full of lies: fraud) are gaining additional protection. And they're being passed through layers with no accountability, so that you can't know who is saying what or who is paying for what.
> Is your opinion of the American electorate so low that you think they need to be shielded from this speech and can't form their own opinions about it?
Two issues are intertwined here. First is the sheer volume of material, which allows simply drowning out any good signal under a mountain of noise. If you hadn't noticed, as soon as the court struck down these restrictions, the total campaign donations and advertising have outstripped the previous presidential campaigns. If the lies drown out the truth, it's not a matter of trusting the electorate anymore - no insult to the People is implied by stating that they're going to have far more trouble weighing things than they ordinarily would. Secondly: some elections are close, and independents/undecideds make up much larger group of voters than the difference the candidates are polling at (You'll see something like 42% vs 40% with 8% undecided and a 3 point margin of error), so a gigantic last-week barrage of attack ads is not something to ignore the threat of. (And I should note that this tactic has worked for some before; that's why they keep doing them, obviously, and why they sought so hard to reduce restrictions on them).
And of course the meta-issue is that, just like individual elections are close, the interparty balance of power in Congress is close, so small shifts in the local elections translate into incredibly large top-level changes in how the government functions. Why else would they be pushing the ads so hard? Far more money is at stake than the cost of the ads. There are single issues (for example: the bush tax cuts: extend, lapse, or partially extend?) that will decide where trillions of dollars go. Another such issue is regulating wall street - massive fortunes are involved here. A third such issue is corporate tax avoidance - again, massive fortunes involved.
One last hammer at the money-equals-speech nail: do recall that the wealthiest 10% of the nation has 90% of the wealth. These are the same people at the helm of the corporations, also, and they are heavily involved in politics too. Thus, clearly, there is no amount of organization that could allow the other 90% to outspend them in an unrestricted campaign donation scenario. It's not a unionization issue at ALL - that's just another unpopular scapegoat their side uses - because the wealthy can flat out outspend us nine-to-one. That's not freedom and the rule of law. That's rule by money. And it's a positive feedback loop - every win they score makes them richer, which enables them to more easily win the next time.
> The intent was that Congress would not be in the position of regulating speech.
If the choice is between Congress saying we all get equal speech, and Congress saying that some are inherently allowed to have far more speech than others, which one of these is preferable, and which one is "Congress regulating speech"?