# 3 Reasons Not To Sweat The "Citizens United" SCOTUS Ruling **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 9, 2010, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328 "2010-02-09T20:52:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/1 "2010-02-09T20:52:12Z")
[3:13 reason.tv video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUdFaIYzNwU) I am one of those liberals who did not like this decision at all, but the points made in this video do leave me wanting to participate in further debate to improve my understanding of the issue. Paraphrasing: 1. Such corporate contributions are already allowed in 26 states, including mine (CA). 2. Media corporations have a long history of endorsing candidates and the world has not ended. 3. More speech is not bad, it catalyzes conversations, especially just prior to an election. My rebuttals: 1. Status quo != the best way and I’d rather see campaign reform in those states than less reform everywhere. 2. A whole debate in and of itself, but I do trust the media companies to be more diplomatic and balanced than say, an oil company who wants to drill in Alaska (to stick with the film’s Exxon/Palin hypothetical). 3. This is the most difficult for rebuttal, but it comes down to resources and the laziness of the average citizen. In order to balance the free speech of corporate special interests, time and money must be spent to organize and distribute differing opinions. The deck is stacked in the corporations favor in that regard. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/2 "2010-02-09T21:07:44Z")
Corporations are not people. Those who think they are, have now made them super people. They have access to huge amounts of money. They already can lobby politicians like crazy. They write the legislation that concerns them. They can create programs slanted to their interests and put them on TV. Soon we will have senators on cspan with Nascar jackets on. That will show who sponsors them. It was a terrible ruling . Right now the corporations are transferring their money back to the repubs in anticipation of what is ahead. They were giving more than usual to the dems because they were in power. It worked to sell people on stopping badly needed heath care reform. It always works. We are screwed. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/3 "2010-02-09T21:16:08Z")
None of this prevents regulating corporate contributions - this will have to be done in a way that preserves First Amendment rights, however. And it is certainly true that corporations have First Amendment rights - those countless newspapers that editorialized against this decision were all owned by corporations. We are posting on message boards provided by a corporation that does at times control the content here. Nothing controversial about that. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/4 "2010-02-09T21:18:31Z")
From the bottom of the page: > [@](#): > > Contents of the Straight Dope Message Board and the Straight Dope Web site are copyright 1984-2009 by Creative Loafing Media, Inc. All rights reserved. By posting on this board you grant the Creative Loafing Media, Inc., and its successors and assigns a nonexclusive irrevocable right to re-use your posting in any manner it or they see fit without notice or compensation to you. No material contained in this site may be republished or reposted without express written consent of the Creative Loafing Media, Inc., except that message board users retain the right to republish or repost their own work. That looks like some stuff affecting the First Amendment and a corporation - to my untrained yet observant eye. ---
**Author:** ![Eternal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@Eternal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eternal)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/5 "2010-02-09T21:19:02Z")
> [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](#): > > 1. This is the most difficult for rebuttal, but it comes down to resources and the laziness of the average citizen. In order to balance the free speech of corporate special interests, time and money must be spent to organize and distribute differing opinions. The deck is stacked in the corporations favor in that regard. If you’re not going to trust the citizenry to do the work of informing themselves when all the information they can realistically get is already out there, you might as well write democracy off altogether. Having “equal time” won’t make a lick of difference, they’ll just vote for whoever had the handsomest news presenter or tallest candidate. Anyway, is someone supposed to control all the information that somehow finds it to the ear of a voter? Why would you trust them more than a corporate goon? What if these guys are voters themself and therefore probably brainless automatons? And what if we go through all that effort and they STILL vote wrong! ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/6 "2010-02-09T21:30:07Z")
> [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](#): > > 1. This is the most difficult for rebuttal, but it comes down to resources and the laziness of the average citizen. In order to balance the free speech of corporate special interests, time and money must be spent to organize and distribute differing opinions. The deck is stacked in the corporations favor in that regard. This argument falls apart, frankly, since the restrictions were not solely on corporations but also affected advocacy organizations and labor unions. This ruling frees them all to produce election related and advocacy ads and other material. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/7 "2010-02-09T21:36:37Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > This argument falls apart, frankly, since the restrictions were not solely on corporations but also affected advocacy organizations and labor unions. This ruling frees them all to produce election related and advocacy ads and other material. That is so not fair. Unions are under 7 percent of the work force. They do not have a sliver of the wealth at hand that corporations do. This is a boon to one group, corporations. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/8 "2010-02-09T21:38:37Z")
Reason magazine is a libertarian/right wing outlet, so what they say has to be taken with that in mind. As far as those 26 states, do they allow unlimited contributions, or do they limit those contributions? I really don’t see the difference between this ruling and pre-existing 527s. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/9 "2010-02-09T21:39:01Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > This argument falls apart, frankly, since the restrictions were not solely on corporations but also affected advocacy organizations and labor unions. This ruling frees them all to produce election related and advocacy ads and other material. It also falls apart because the First Amendment doesn’t mandate equal speech, it protects free speech. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/10 "2010-02-09T21:40:56Z")
I’m far less concerned about what is fair in this regard than what is constitutional. Lots of things I dislike are perfectly legal, and some things I wish would happen just happen to be against the rules. This decision is what it is - necessary. Without it we would have more and more encroachments on freedom of speech in the guise of plugging loopholes. Better to start over and look for better ways to reform campaigns. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/11 "2010-02-09T21:46:05Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > That is so not fair. Unions are under 7 percent of the work force. They do not have a sliver of the wealth at hand that corporations do. This is a boon to one group, corporations. Just as a note, unions are corporations. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/12 "2010-02-09T21:48:55Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Just as a note, unions are corporations. Well I was incorporated as an Engineer. I do not think the ruling had me in mind either. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/13 "2010-02-09T22:01:00Z")
A lot of politicians have attempted to pass laws on campaign financing to limit the effects of the corporations. When we tried to get legislation to reign in the banks it failed .When asked why, Durbin replied" they own the place". This ruling will make it worse, much worse. The health insurance companies sicced 1500 lobbyists on the politicians Does that sound like their opinions were being suppressed? This will exacerbate a serious problem. Our pols will have to be bigger money whores than they already are. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/14 "2010-02-09T22:13:44Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Well I was incorporated as an Engineer. I do not think the ruling had me in mind either. It did. Actually, the ruling wasn’t about a for profit corporation. It was about a not for profit public interest group that made a documentary about a candidate. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/15 "2010-02-09T22:43:02Z")
1. “Corporations aren’t people” is weak. Corporations are tools created by people to do stuff, and you can’t argue that limiting them won’t inhibit the ability of people to do stuff. (You can say that maybe we should inhibit certain abilities, but painting corporations as faceless monoliths is inaccurate. Also remember that nonprofits also count as corporations.) 2. I agree with [Volokh](http://volokh.com/2010/01/22/why-restrictions-on-corporate-speech-undermine-political-equality/) that politics, at least a politics as expansive as ours, is a zero-sum game. If corporations lose, then other folks gain. What sort of folks? Lobbyists, academics, journalists, celebrities, and the individually extremely rich. Taking the broad view, then, nixing corporate speech will increase, not decrease, individual inequality in political influence. 3. All that said, I’m concerned about the practical effect of increased corporate political influence. By and large, profit-seeking corporations only have one reason to get involved with politics, and that is rent-seeking. Google will want subsidized free broadband, GM will want protectionism, and Goldman Sachs will want implicit government guarantees against collapse. Of course, even if corporate speech is muzzled there’s nothing to stop them from hiring lobbyists, so the marginal effect of this decision may not be that great. A longer-term solution would be to limit the government’s ability to grant economic rents, whether by drawing back its powers to begin with or by agitating voter sentiment against corporate welfare. 4. This really shouldn’t be a partisan issue. Corporations regularly donate to both parties, and in [2008](http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638) Obama received more corporate donations than McCain. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/16 "2010-02-09T22:46:47Z")
> [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](#): > > [3) This is the most difficult for rebuttal, but it comes down to resources and the laziness of the average citizen. In order to balance the free speech of corporate special interests, time and money must be spent to organize and distribute differing opinions. The deck is stacked in the corporations favor in that regard. Here’s the best rebuttal I’ve yet seen, in terms of both public policy **and** constitutional-law reasoning: From [url=[NEXT AMERICAN NATION: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution: Lind, Michael: 9780684825038: Amazon.com: Books](http://www.amazon.com/NEXT-AMERICAN-NATION-Nationalism-Revolution/dp/0684825031/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214163307&sr=8-1)]_The Next American Nation,_]([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUdFaIYzNwU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUdFaIYzNwU)) by Michael Lind (The Free Press, 1995), pp. 256-259 (from before the McCain-Feingold Bill, but I don’t think the picture has changed all that much since it passed): > [@](#): > > Campaign financing is by far the most important mechanism for overclass influence in government. The real two-party system in the United States consists of the party of voters and the tiny but influential party of donors. The donor party in the United States is made up of an extraordinarily small number of citizens. In 1988, according to one study, only 10.2 percent of the American public made a contribution to a candidate, party, or partisan group. . . . The group of large political donors is a still more exclusive club. According to a study by Citizen Action, in the 1989-90 election cycle only 179,677 individual donors gave contributions greater than $200 to a federal candidate, political action committee (PAC), or party: “Thirty-four percent of the money spent by federal candidates was directly contributed by no more than one-tenth of one percent of the voting age population.” One may reasonably doubt that this one tenth of one percent is representative of the electorate or the population at large. > > \ > > Special interests buy favors from congressmen and presidents through political action committees (PACs), devices by which groups like corporations, professional associations, trade unions, investment banking groups – can pool their money and give $10,000 per election to each House and Senate candidate. Today there are more than 4,000 Political Action Committees (PACs) of various kinds registered with the Federal Election Commission; in 1974, when they were sanctioned by law, there were only 500. PAC money is driving campaign costs to new heights. In 1992, the average Senate incumbent spent more than $3.6 million for re-election; that is the equivalent of raising $12,000 a week in a single six-year term. Members of Congress, by comparison, spend only an average of $557,403 to be re-elected – a “mere” $5,000 a week for a two-year term. The average cost of a House campaign has risen to this level from $140,000 in 1980 – and $52,000 in 1974. > > The chief beneficiaries of rising campaign costs and PAC contributions have been incumbents. In 1972, 52 cents of the average PAC dollar went to incumbents, compared to 25 cents to challengers (the rest went to candidates for open seats); in the 1988 House elections, incumbents received 84.4 cents of each PAC dollar and challengers only 8.6 cents. It makes more sense for lobbies to buy access to established members of Congress and senators – particularly those with important leadership positions – than to fund challengers, who, if elected, would have no seniority and little influence. . . . Former Senator Barry Goldwater has lamented, “The Founding Fathers would frown in their graves if they saw us rationing candidacies sheerly on the basis of money: who has – or can raise – the millions necessary to run for office.” > > Democrats, when they were members of the majority party, received more PAC money than Republicans, though both parties are saturated with it. Contrary to conservative claims that liberal lobby groups dominate Congress, PAC funds come overwhelmingly from business: in 1990, 65 percent of PAC contributions came from business PACs, compared to 24 percent from labor and only 11 percent from ideological groups (including conservative as well as liberal pressure groups). “At one point,” John Judis has pointed out, “the American Petroleum Institute employed more lobbyists in Washington than the entire labor movement.” They don’t come much more libertarian than Goldwater, and even he was appalled at this state of affairs. From the same book, pp. 311-313: > [@](#): > > Today’s U.S. government is democratic in form but plutocratic in substance. . . . In a misguided 1976 decision, Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court held that Congress could not limit spending by rich Americans promoting their own candidacies. This decision was to the equalization of voting power what Dred Scott was to abolitionism. In The Yale Law Review, Jamin Raskin and John Boniface have argued that political candidates in the United States must win a “wealth primary.” Candidates without enormous amounts of money, either from their own fortunes or from rich individuals and special interest groups, cannot hope to win the party primaries – much less general elections. Indeed, the Buckley decision is one reason why more than half the members of the Senate today are millionaires. . . . > > It is time to build a wall of separation between check and state. Curing the disease of plutocratic politics requires a correct diagnosis of its cause: the costs of political advertising. The basic problem is that special interests buy access and favors by donating the money needed for expensive political advertising in the media. Elaborate schemes governing the flow of money do nothing to address the central problem: paid political advertising. Instead of devising unworkable limits on campaign financing that leave the basic system intact, we should cut the Gordian knot of campaign corruption by simply outlawing paid political advertising on behalf of any candidate for public office. The replacement of political advertising by free informational public service notices in the electronic and print media would level the playing field of politics and kill off an entire parasitic industry of media consultants and spin doctors. > > An outright ban on paid political advertising and the imposition of free time requirements on the media are radical measures, but nothing less is necessary if we are to prevent our government from continuing to be sold to the highest bidders. **The argument against strict public regulation of money in politics is based on a false analogy between free spending and free speech protected under the First Amendment. The analogy is false, because limits on campaign finance do not address the content of speech – only its volume, as it were. It is not an infringement on free speech to say that, in a large public auditorium, Douglas will not be allowed to use a microphone unless Lincoln can as well.** \* > > \*A much more compelling analogy would be between the electoral process and the judicial system, with the electorate playing the role of the jury. In our system of trial by jury, there are elaborate rules governing the presentation of evidence to the jury by plaintiff and defendant (the “candidates”). If our judicial system were organized the way our judicial system is, then rich candidates would be allowed to buy time before the jury. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, in one Senate election, outspent his opponent by 300 to 1; the equivalent, in the judicial system, would be allowing a rich defendant to buy, say, six months to present his side of the case, while the poor plaintiff might be able to purchase only twenty minutes for his side. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/17 "2010-02-09T22:48:00Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > 1. This really shouldn’t be a partisan issue. Corporations regularly donate to both parties, and in [2008](http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638) Obama received more corporate donations than McCain. Well, that makes it even **worse,** doesn’t it? The way things stand now, **no matter who wins an election, he’s beholden to the coroporations.** That’s plutocracy, not democracy. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/18 "2010-02-09T22:49:11Z")
Democracy has a big problem: you let half the population, with an IQ of under 100, have an equal vote to the smartest guy in the country. Extremists on both sides have always wanted to manage the idiot voter under the assumption that he or she is too stupid to make an independent decision. I am disappointed in the demonization and distrust of “corporations.” I work in the corporate world and I think the typical negative characterization of large corporations is both naive and wrong. In any case, as pointed out in the video, what corporations have more control over public opinion than the media, much of which is liberal? And as a second to having the most control, higher education which is also heavily biased toward a liberal bent? I am personally far more disappointed in legislators and bureaucrats, on average, than I am in corporations bending public will. We get who we vote for and most of the time we vote for whoever is going to line our local pockets, be it Mr Murtha or Ms Landrieu. To pretend that legislators are pawns of large corporations and voters are too stupid to understand issues for themselves is just silly. And in this age of instant information distribution, the idea of controlling information is even sillier. We have turned lately to electing legislators willing to allow us to line our pockets with the tax money from future generations. The battle over liberal v conservative and free speech will all be meaningless when we no longer have anything but service on the debt itself. And the fault for that lies not in SCOTUS but in ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/19 "2010-02-09T22:53:51Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > A longer-term solution would be to limit the government’s ability to grant economic rents, whether by drawing back its powers to begin with or by agitating voter sentiment against corporate welfare. But, until campaign finance is reformed to eliminate money’s influence in elections, **nothing like that can even be on the table,** because the corporations don’t want it to be, and when it comes down to it, it’s the elected officials or those with a financially-realistic shot at being such who get to set the outer limits of the agenda. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328/20 "2010-02-09T22:55:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, that makes it even **worse,** doesn’t it? The way things stand now, **no matter who wins an election, he’s beholden to the coroporations.** That’s plutocracy, not democracy. That was just hedging their bets. They have put their money on the likely winner, not because of their neutrality but because they want to have influence with the in party. The repubs have been their party for generations. That has not changed. But they continue to back repubs all the time. You know who they work for. Since the ruling ,money has been moving back to the repubs. That should not be a surprise. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/3-reasons-not-to-sweat-the-citizens-united-scotus-ruling/528328.md?page=2)