The National: Supremely legislating

Many of you may not have noticed it. After all, it happened so fast in the midst of last week’s Massachusetts election, the ongoing health care debate and NBC’s Tonight Show mega-blunder. But last week, a mortal wound was delivered to our political system, a wound that threatens our democracy, and could possibly destroy it.

The United States Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the ability to contribute to political campaigns through unlimited advertising. In other words, a corporation can directly spend all the money it wants on ads for political candidates, or even on ads opposing candidates. They cannot, however, contribute this money directly to a campaign.

There are mountains of issues the ruling concerns, one being that this may be legislating from the bench—because it is. The law was passed not by our elected officials, but by an unelected branch of government not meant to create law.

As it now stands, corporations and unions have the legal ability to enter our political and democratic process, purchasing a level of influence never before seen, and taking our democracy a long way from a country “by the people, for the people.”

This particular verdict came in response to a case brought by Citizens United, a group who filmed an anti-Hillary Clinton film, but was prevented from releasing it during her run for the democratic presidential nomination. Citizens United took the Federal Elections Commission to court over the issue.

Instead of ruling on this particular case, the Supreme Court went beyond the usual function of their branch and turned legal perception of corporations and unions on its head.

“We are going to see now a inundation of special interest money into political campaigns,” said Sen. John McCain on Face the Nation Sunday. “I think this diminishes the influence of average citizens”

With this development, parts of McCain’s Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that he crafted along with Sen. Russell Feingold have been voided, such as provisions limiting the influence of money in politics.

“I think that there is going to be, over time, a backlash,” McCain said. “When you see the amounts of union and corporate money that is going to go into political campaigns.”

Some views of the decision have been positive, such as those presented by David Primo, associate professor of political science at the University of Rochester.

“There are real First Amendment concerns here,” Primo said in an online video. “It seems unreasonable for the congress to tell people how and when they can petition their government.”

But this really isn’t about freedom of speech. This verdict doesn’t affect the American peoples’ right to free speech. It does highlight a longstanding debate about what corporations really are. For some time now they have been viewed as legal persons, no different from you and I. Primo’s statements seem to support the idea that corporations are no different than people, and therefore deserve constitutional rights meant for American citizens.

However, corporations have evolved into an entity far different and more powerful than us mere mortals. They can amass monetary might in ways most humans could never do in their lifetimes. Though corporations may end, they also have the ability to exist beyond human generations. And they can assemble entire departments dedicated to influence or lobby our political system. Now, that power is even greater.

Giving power over our government to entities that aren’t U.S. citizens or even human defeats the goal our American experiment attempts to achieve—a free country.

Paul A. Burkett, New Hampshire attorney, is one such person who sees the concern posed. Dealing with tax law, Burkett is familiar with the realm of business and this decision’s implications.

“If we are concerned about the involvement of foreign individuals in U.S. elections…then those same concerns should apply to foreign corporations. But that’s what the court has taken off the table,” Burkett said. “It is difficult to define what nationality that corporation has…does it matter if a UK company owned by a U.S. citizen, or a U.S. corporation owned by a UK citizen? You are eventually going to get into issues of majority ownership and minority ownership and it gets difficult really quick.”

Where do we draw the line? Can a U.S. subsidiary of a foreign company spend massive amounts of money meant to influence an election?

In the end, our democracy is at stake and there is a growing plague of money mixing with politics. If corporations can cherry pick political candidates to spend money on, those candidates may unfairly be swayed in favor of those corporations, moving their presence further away from their constituents.

*Originally posted January 29, 2010.