Roberts Court Overturns Yet Another Precedent in Favor of Corporate Campaign Cash

Prior to the decision, there were limits. And it was much harder for companies to invest dollars into political campaigns.

Now the money will really pour in.

It's not a free speech issue. People can say what they like - so can companies. It's a matter of using campaign donations to influence policy. You can try to disguise that as "free speech" but what it really is "free bribes".

No one's free speech rights are being attacked here. It's only the amount of money - something that a 100 years of laws and supreme courts have upheld....and one man - Mr. Roberts has the authority to reverse that? Wow.


By the way, Brown supports Romney-Care as you call it. He wouldn't have won if he didn't. So there goes your theory there.

 

Couldn't corporations open up as many PACs as they want?

 

From Newsweek:

Stuart Taylor Jr.

The End of Restraint
Alito, Roberts, and judicial modesty.

The Supreme Court's five conservatives are properly protective of American citizens' First Amendment rights to spend as much of their money as they wish on political speech, both individually and by funding nonprofit advocacy groups. But this was no justification for the court's blockbuster, precedent-smashing Jan. 21 decision unleashing corporate executives to pour unlimited amounts of stockholders' money—without their consent—into ads supporting or attacking federal candidates. Indeed the 5–4 decision would allow any big company to spend a fortune attacking candidates whom many, or even most, of its stockholders would rather support. And corporations—including multinationals controlled by foreigners—will spend money on elections not to advance the political views of their stockholders, but to seek economic advantage.

Read the rest of it here. Perhaps it will clear up some confusion.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/232166

 

I read it on NYT the other day and can't quite believe that's serious.

Well, welcome to the wild wild west of US of A, it will be fun!

 

just when i think the conservatives can't get any dumber, nero belts one out of the park. good job!

those brave soldiers fighting for those corporations who've never had a voice...awesome!

 

There were numerous ways they could use their cash for freedom of speech. They didn't need this to do that.

 

In a small town dominated by a single large corporate entity, my guess is we see a return to the "company towns" of the Industrial Revolution.

 

Are churches next?

 

I ask because PACs had limits before the ruling, but couldn't it have been conceivable for unlimited PACs to get around those individual limits?

 

Goldman Sachs presents: President Jaysus Robertson Falwell?

 

i think what you're upset about is not corporate control of government per se, but which corporations control government. the NYTimes and News Corp, both public corporations, have virtually unlimited ability to publish political advocacy speech, whether in their news pages or on the editorial pages. in the case of the Times you could argue they've taken the concept to an extreme and done so to the substantial detriment of their shareholders. why should the Times have a greater right to free speech than, say, Pfizer, or Chevron? because they're also a newspaper?

and CU is a case about a PPV movie. the existing law could also bar TBS from running Michael Moore's latest "epic", or PBS from showing Will Farrell's one man Broadway Show about W.

i know it's Cato, and so some of you will dismiss it out of hand, but it's worth watching their take on the ruling.

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NYtime doesn't bribe elected officials like Chevron does and now can do openly.

 

basso,
that's a nice post, and I actually sat and watched the Cato Institute video. I learned a few things but none of the things I learned ended up changing my view on the pandora's bank vault aspect of this ruling.

1. You're wrong about my caring *which* corporations can spend in an unlimited way to buy government officials. I don't want Ben and Jerry's hippy ice cream to own officials, and I don't want Chevron to own officials. The stat being quoted now is that if, in 2008, the largest 25 corporations had been allowed to spend just 1% of their profits on the election, that would swamp the total spending of the presidential race and all congressional races. Consider that for a moment.

2. From my understanding, the issue of focus in the Cato video (the case originally brought to the court) did NOT in any way mean the court had to radically broaden their discussion and reconsider 100 years of precedent.

In the end, even if election laws meant Walmart couldn't advertise some candidate dolls, that's a price worth paying to keep corporations from fully buying candidates, elections, and policies that only benefit them -- again, I don't care which corporation is doing it. If you are elected official X, and you know you were elected only because corporation Y spent $50M on your campaign, and that your career will be over if you don't vote in a way that supports Y, then our democracy has been compromised in a way we haven't seen since the 19th century, if even then.

There is already serious talk of a constitutional amendment, and that may where this heads.

In my view, anyone who respected John McCain, OR anyone who respected Barack Obama should be upset about this ruling. That's a LOT of people who could be interested in fixing this.

 

i'm not sure i get the respect for Obama on campaign finance reform- he repudiated his promise to go the public route in June 2008. consequentially, McCain fought the campaign with one hand tied behind his back, financially speaking.

 

They both decry the ruling, period. I know Obama's awful, etc, but he did NOT seek to pour limitless corporate funds into the federal election cycles.

By the way, in thinking about this New York Times business... I really don't get that particular tangent/comparison.

"Your team" gets Murdoch, Fox News' preconceived narrative, most of 24-hr AM radio, etc. It's a stretch to say NYT is in that sphere of bias, but what's not a stretch is to say the broadcast and print media span the spectrum of political beliefs (though very little remains that is truly progressive, in the sense of, say, The Nation.)

Cheers.

 

my point wasn't really that the times is any worse/better than fox, et al, or one "side" worse than the other, but rather to note that both are corporations, or owned by large media conglomerates, and therefor no different, and no more entitled to freedom of speech than any other corporation. if you're going to regulate one, you must therefore regulate them all- the downside of the corporatization of american media.

and what is media anyway? in the internet age one could argue that google and Aol are part of the media. if you grant freedom of expression to google, why not microsoft?

and my point about Obama is less what he says now, and more about what he did then. actions speaking much louder than rhetoric...

 

I want to clarify things, but let me ask: in what way has democracy been compromised? I just want a clarification.
Let me ask something about your scenario then: Corporation X donates 50 million to Candiate Y, which contributes to his victory over candiate Z. Now according to you, Candiate Y will be forced to vote with the policies of Corporation X. But there are two scenarios here:
1. Candidate Y votes those policies which Corporation X likes, and are policies which the majority of the citizens of the constituency of Candidate Y likes.
2. Candidate Y votes those policies which Corporation X likes, and are policies which the majority of the citizens of the constituency of Candidate Y does not like.

Now under Scenario 1, what's the problem? The Candidate is voting policies which the Corporation likes, but as he is representing his constituents by voting that which they support, there's no real problem here.
Scenario 2 at first glance seems problematic, but really isn't. If the Candidate does vote for policies which the Corporation likes, but the constituency does not like (say voting for outsourcing in a heavy manufacturing district), then the constituencies will be angry and vote him out. Now you will argue that the Corporation will spend money to keep him in office, but the only way the Corporation can spend money to keep him in office is by persuading the voters of the validity of the views of the Corporation. If they can do that, then there is nothing wrong with it. If they can't do that, then their Candidate will be thrown out of office.

This is further accentuated by the well-know fact that most Americans do not like the Congress as a whole, but generally like their Congressmen. Logically, this then means that the Congressmen either 1. has views which the district agrees with or 2. has views which the district does not agree with but has some other thing that keeps in power. If voters are willing to accept that, than that is simply the democratic process.

As for the constituional amendment: the problem is with chatting with my buddies is that the proposed amendment is the abolishment of corporate personhood altogther, something which is frankly a really, really bad idea.

 

Aside from the immense difference in wealth (maybe 1000 or more to one of corps vs unions), in unions you have votes from members on how to spend campaign contributions. RocketsJudoka for instance has no ballot as his money spent on Exxon gas is funneled to defeat any sort of bills aiming at reducing green house gases. BTW it is not moderate or measured to ignore a 1000 times difference in size when making an argument about political influence.

 

You are not thinking on this one. The electorate will be e
"educated" by their corporate masters. Who will educate them otherwise?

 

BTW, gang, I believe that we should all be proud that we are concerned enough to engage in this thread. I have found it educational.

I often find myself telling friends about things I read or right wingers I have been exposed to in Clutch City. My friends thinks it is crazy to argue politics with mere Rockets fans, but they are wrong.