About that campaign finance ruling

[solarbird]

Glenn Greenwald, an actual Constitutional-law lawyer, posts two columns defending the ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. He notes a couple of key items: that none of the justices argued that corporations are not persons, and none of the justices agreed with the assertion that money is not effectively speech. (Karl Denninger notes legitimately that while money isn't speech per se', it is the amplifier, and extends that analogy meaningfully, tho' I don't think his proposed solution is useful.) The four dissenters argued that the infringement upon these rights was served by a compelling state interest, and that's all.

Not liking the outcome of the ruling doesn't mean the ruling is wrong, or that the ruling lacks legal merit. For me: I think the convention that corporations are persons is silly - but there's also about a century and a half of legal precedent behind it. I do not think that money restrictions lack a speech infringement; I specifically think they do.

I also don't think the ruling changes the situation significantly. Congress is already owned; this doesn't change that. It may make it somewhat more difficult to change that through the electoral process, but the institutionalised exclusionary system of media and only-two-parties-count already make that an extraordinary difficulty, and since disclosure is still required, massive expenditures from companies could actually be useful to a challenger to the system.

Comments

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

When it comes to American politics, the only change that seems to happen is that things get worse.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

I think that it's going to add so much noise and annoyance to the electoral process that people will totally switch off. Not from the elections- but from the wall-to-wall hype.

Election fatigue, anyone?

Who wants more robo-calls, ads, tv-spots, radio spots, and overkill?

Just give me a bio, a speech, and let me decide for myself.

Personally, I think this is actually going to be a corporate death sentence. But I am in the minority. Hide and watch.

[solarbird]

"corporate death sentence" meaning...?

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

That perhaps Congress will address- and reverse- the erroneous 1886 ruling that made corporations 'legal persons' in the eyes of the law.

[avram]

I've usually heard "corporate death sentence" used to refer to revoking corporate charters. For individual ne'er-do-well corporations, I mean, not wholesale.

[solarbird]

Um, yeah. Good luck with that.

[ankh-f-n-khonsu.livejournal.com]

I also don't think the ruling changes the situation significantly. Congress is already owned; this doesn't change that. It may make it somewhat more difficult to change that through the electoral process, but the institutionalised exclusionary system of media and only-two-parties-count already make that an extraordinary difficulty, and since disclosure is still required, massive expenditures from companies could actually be useful to a challenger to the system.

I'm torn between agreeing and disagreeing. On the one hand, I think it does change things significantly - as mentioned on Democracy Now!, if Exxon devoted 10% of its yearly profits to funding politicians, ...

"With $85 billion in profits during the 2008 election, Exxon Mobil would have been able to fully fund over 65,000 winning campaigns for U.S. House or outspend every candidate by a factor of 90 to 1."


And that's one corporation. But, on the other hand, I agree that it's just more of the same degradation - SSDD, if you will.

If interested, here's my post on the ruling: SCOTUS: "$$$ = Speech, Corporations = People, & Fuck Democracy!" (http://sophrosyne.radical.r30.net/wordpress/?p=3821)

[solarbird]

if Exxon devoted 10% of its yearly profits to funding politicians
Then they'd have the same result as now, in effect, and it'd be more expensive.

Corporate death sentance- Too big to fail?

[(Anonymous)]

Isn't 'too big to fail' equal to 'please enforce Antitrust breakup provisions?' Is anybody with any clout doing anything about this? Or even saying anything about it?

It's less of a political football than 'I want the corporation that donated to my opponent gone'. If nobody enforces antitrust laws, the other stuff will never happen.

Bruce

Re: Corporate death sentance- Too big to fail?

[solarbird]

Antitrust law has to do with competitiveness of market rather than total size of any participant(s).

[epawtows.livejournal.com]

Hopefully corps. will realize that if there aren't *some* limits, they'll have the choice of spending themselves bankrupt trying to sway elections, or losing their business to companies who picked option 1.