"The Supreme Court in essence has ruled that corporations can buy elections. If that happens, democracy in America is over. We cannot put the law up for sale, and award government to the highest bidder." Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Florida) statement introducing legislation to counter the High Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
The US Supreme Court has issued a ruling that effectively guts the McCain-Feingold Act which regulates campaign practices and funding in federal elections. A lower court had ruled that the broadcast of a corporate funded attack campaign advertisement against Hillary Clinton within the 30 day window preceding a federal election violated the McCain-Feingold Act. Two issues were at stake in the case.
First, and probably most important, was the question whether corporations have the same free speech rights as human citizens in the context of campaign funding. Opponents, including legal scholars, argue that corporations are fictitious “persons” or “citizens” whose rights are a creation of statute and not derived from any Constitutional principle. The limited rights created were for the purpose of allowing corporations to make legally binding agreements on behalf of the entity instead of in the name of a regular person representing the interests of the organization. In addition, corporate persons could go into a court of law to enforce those legal agreements. From its inception, the corporation acts were never intended to grant these fictitious persons the “natural rights” deemed inalienable under the Founders’ concept of government and society.
There is good reason for the distinction. Corporations were created to permit the aggregation of wealth and economic power that individuals typically could not muster. When the purpose was limited to the commercial sphere, this “accommodation” in the form of a fictitious person or entity enabled the investment of private capital to be employed for economic growth and expansion. This salutary purpose is, however, the precise reason why corporations should not be given unbridled license in the sphere of electoral politics. The ability to amass huge amounts of capital to influence or even “buy” elections distorts the electoral process and takes it out of the realm of democracy. Individuals simply cannot compete with these aggregated economic giants in trying to communicate a message relating to candidates or elections.
And there is currently a more insidious level in the communication process. The individual seeking to get his or her opinion or message to the public has to purchase airtime from the media. Aside from the obvious disadvantage in competing with corporation budgets in attempting to bid for that airtime, the media is owned and controlled by corporations. This incestuous relationship of corporate campaign funding through corporate owned media conglomerates further excludes the individual citizen from the democratic electoral process.
"With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.” President Barack Obama
The Supreme Court ruled that corporate speech could be regulated through “disclaimer and disclosure” requirements, but could not be precluded altogether. The Court did not squarely address how such disclosure requirements, such as the name of the organization sponsoring the advertisement, would counter the damage or imbalance when the corporate speech is effectively the only message broadcast.
Ironically, those Justices who rant most audibly against judicial legislation and in favor of “strict construction” or “original intent” look like the most shallow hypocrites by turning their backs on the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution in order to accommodate the interests of the corporate elite.
The second issue in the case relates to the window of 30 days prior to elections in which certain types of advertisement are banned under the McCain-Feingold Act. Logically, if Corporations are free to spend as much as they like on campaign ads, then we can expect a barrage of attack ads up to the opening of polls in future elections. Since there will be virtually no time to investigate blatantly false, misleading and even fraudulent ads until after the election has been held and the damage done, the Supreme Court can reasonably be said to have sold and subverted the democratic electoral process. On its face, this is not a partisan issue because progressive messages could be broadcast as easily as right wing advertisements. However, experience tells us that corporations nearly always favor deregulation, reduction of protections for average citizens and government interference only for the purpose of granting corporate subsidies.
The idea that corporate funding in elections would go to support candidates who favor environmental controls, fair trade regulation, restrictions on Wall Street and Investment practices, universal health care, additional public support for education of our children or any other concept directed to public well-being is fanciful at best and more aptly described as delusional. Corporations have no ethics, conscience or moral constraints as natural citizens are believed to have. Corporations only have economic interests. This is no more a condemnation than is the assertion that cars have no emotions, it is simply a fact due to the inherent nature of the thing.
That is why cases like the Ford Pinto case, deadly drug recalls, Bhopal, Black lung cases, Asbestos Cases, Exxon-Valdiz and a host of other remedial lawsuits have been necessary. Corporations act to increase and protect corporate profits, even if it means the death or destruction of thousands of human lives. A Corporation cannot be subjected to the theoretical deterrent of the death penalty for acts of intentional murder. A corporation cannot even be effectively put to death to prevent future crimes or reckless behavior. Its shareholders simply incorporate or “reincarnate” the entity and continue on with business as usual.
Congress was designed to provide a House of Representatives to balance lawmaking with the voice of individual citizens. Perhaps a third House of Congress needs to be established to channel the voice and representation of corporations. Then corporate funding would have to be directed only to election of representatives speaking and acting in behalf of these “corporate citizens.” Without some form of alteration, however, the current electoral process has just been destroyed and sold to the highest corporate bidder.
No comments:
Post a Comment