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Via The Daily Beast:
The American Civil Liberties Union is convening to debate the group’s position on campaign finance in the wake of the groundbreaking Supreme Court ruling that overturned restrictions on corporate advertising during political races. The ACLU has long opposed limits on campaign donations and advertising—a position it shares with conservatives—and filed a brief on the winning side of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. But now members are considering reversing course due to concerns that huge corporations could use a tiny part of their budget to drown out the views of average citizens. But famous First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams has a different view: “The worst thing you could do… is transform a civil liberties organization into a liberal political organization.” Some within the ACLU see this as a “Skokie moment,” when the group defended the right of Nazis to march. It was controversial at the time, but now is a source of pride for sticking to principles.As one of those card-carrying members, I must trust we’ll give lefties a forum to gnash their teeth—
Update: Glenn Greenwald’s post should be required reading for progressives outraged about the ruling.
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I'm a leftie, I hate the decision, but I hope that the ACLU does not change it's opinion.
Would you mind elaborating on the whys of both (hate/hope) ? I'm curious.
I do not understand this ACLU decision at all. First Amendment? I thought the bill of rights was only for people? the ACLU is using this premise of corporations being people, and acting like they have no choice and their hands are tied to principle. sounds like bullshit to me. actually, letting the Nazis march makes a lot more sense than letting corporations be treated as people. they are not people and cannot participate in the political process.
It's not really "an ACLU decision", we've long been opposed to political speech restrictions, because that's what civil libertarians do (this is one of my senator Russ Feingold's few blind spots). Now the ACLU is having a new debate because of progressive outrage, but I don't expect it to go anywhere.
The issue in question is not whether corporations are people, and the Citizens decision did not target corporations. For a stimulating introduction, see Glenn Greenwald. He's an ACLU-style civil libertarian. Read his whole post. (edit: updated OP with link, too)
Greenwald does make a good point with this:
"I'm also quite skeptical of the apocalyptic claims about how this decision will radically transform and subvert our democracy by empowering corporate control over the political process. My skepticism is due to one principal fact: I really don't see how things can get much worse in that regard. The reality is that our political institutions are already completely beholden to and controlled by large corporate interests (Dick Durbin: "banks own" the Congress). Corporations find endless ways to circumvent current restrictions — their armies of PACs, lobbyists, media control, and revolving-door rewards flood Washington and currently ensure their stranglehold — and while this decision will make things marginally worse, I can't imagine how it could worsen fundamentally. All of the hand-wringing sounds to me like someone expressing serious worry that a new law in North Korea will make the country more tyrannical. There's not much room for our corporatist political system to get more corporatist. Does anyone believe that the ability of corporations to influence our political process was meaningfully limited before yesterday's issuance of this ruling?"
It is pretty fair to say that corporate control over the political process has gotten so bad that it's hard to imagine worse. although my imagination is vast and wide, and can think up all sorts of horribles.
greenwald's piece is pretty good overall
I understand that corporations (or unions) being people is not what this is about, but when you say they have free speech, youre accepting them as people. Are we infringing on their 1st amendment by limiting cigarette advertising? how more radical is this gonna get?
btw, just wondering, do you think the personal contribution limit should be removed?
Nope…as Greenwald put it:
I would add a different tack and say that even if the First Amendment specifically applied to persons (which in my view it doesn't, it's simply "Congress shall make no law"), people can exercise that right to free speech through their freedom of association, and thus through organizations of people. Organizations that may or may not be for-profit, and may or may not be corporations.
do you think the personal contribution limit should be removed?
I don't know which part of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress an enumerated power to limit personal contributions at the federal level. So maybe it should be left to the states. But I'm also not sure it passes incorporation muster (it may, but I haven't read up on arguments why)
Constitutional issues aside (just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should) I don't think you can feasibly take the money out of politics until you take the politics out of money. People will just find backdoor ways to grease the palms of politicians who give them tax breaks. I think I'd rather see $5,000,000 personal campaign contributions on disclosure sheets and make an informed vote.
As a legal point, limits on commercial speech have been routinelyupheld by the supreme court (can't remenber the justification offhandbut I think, in this instance, was based on there being a compellingpublic health interest that outweighed the speech interest). I shareyour (and justice rehnquist's) concerns about going too far down therabbit hole with treating corporations as people, full bore, in termsof the first amendment.
All the more reason to institute public financing for national elections
How does such a system handle third parties? Elections in districts mostly dominated by a single party?
Does it cover any type of expense the candidate wishes that can plausibly be argued to be election-related? Can the party still advertise on the candidate's behalf with private funds? And can most any individual or organization still take out ads in favor of a candidate (per Citizens) ? Then what does limiting direct personal contributions to campaigns actually accomplish?
so if we take the argument as a given for now that we already have a nearly saturated $billions flow of corporate money into politics one way or the other, think about the benefits. for one, it would completely free up our lawmakers from fundraising, and make them actually, you know, work for their money.
see, e.g., this letter from business execs in the wake of the ruling:
Roughly 40 executives from companies including Playboy Enterprises, ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, the Seagram’s liquor company, toymaker Hasbro, Delta Airlines and Men’s Wearhouse sent a letter to congressional leaders Friday urging them to approve public financing for House and Senate campaigns. They say they are tired of getting fundraising calls from lawmakers — and fear it will only get worse after Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling. [...]
“Members of Congress already spend too much time raising money from large contributors,” the business executives’ letter says. “And often, many of us individually are on the receiving end of solicitation phone calls from members of Congress. With additional money flowing into the system due to the court’s decision, the fundraising pressure on members of Congress will only increase.” <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/22/corporations-…” target=”_blank”>http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/22/corporations-…