POSC 111 Discussion 11
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Political Science
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Feb 20, 2024
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POSC 111 Discussion 11
In the context of campaign financing, I think the federal government ought to
have the authority to restrict the influence of corporate power. Unfortunately,
corporations now have the unrestricted ability to contribute to political campaigns thanks to the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The decision made by the Supreme Court is detrimental to society. This is due to the decision's reliance on the absurd justification that corporations ought to be accorded the same rights and treatment as actual people. This implies that companies are free to spend as much money as they want, whenever they want, to support candidates who will comply with their demands and intimidate or destroy candidates who are running on platforms that conflict with their own. Excellent news for businesses seeking to personally select the legislators who will oversee them (Lau, 2019). A brief history of campaign finance regulation is necessary to comprehend the Citizens United v. FEC case. Congress passed multiple laws to restrict campaign spending between 1907 and 1970. This included restrictions on the contribution of campaign funds by corporations, unions, and federal employees. The Federal Elections Campaign Act (FECA), passed by Congress in 1971, strengthened the obligations on politicians to disclose their campaign finances in public and placed restrictions on the total amount of money that individuals or organizations could donate to candidates. The Federal Election Commission, or FEC, was established as a result to regulate campaign finance. In the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo case, the Supreme Court invalidated a portion of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on the grounds that limiting independent expenditure by individuals and organizations violated the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech. This marked a turning point in the trend toward campaign spending restrictions. Even so, additional campaign regulation arrived in 2002 when the McCain-
Feingold Act, also known as the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, forbade businesses or labor unions from funding issue-based advertising on behalf of political candidates. These are sometimes referred to as electioneering messages (Mann, 2003).
This leads us to the 2010 case of Citizens United v. FEC. There are those who
argue that Citizens United allowed corporations to donate to political campaigns. That's not correct. The case concerned independent expenditures rather than contributions at all, and the court took no action to weaken the federal government's total prohibition on corporate contributions. A documentary that was produced by the nonprofit organization Citizens United was critical of Hillary Clinton, who was running for president at the time. The goal of Citizens United was to promote and distribute the documentary. Due to Citizens United's receipt of funding from for-profit businesses, the organization's planned expenditure on a speech
that included Mrs. Clinton broke the law prohibiting corporate spending on elections (Oyez, 2022).
References:
Federal Election Commission (n.d.). Citizens United v. FEC. https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/citizens-united-v-fec/
Lau, T. (2019). Citizens United explained. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-
work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained
Mann, T.E. (2003). Linking Knowledge and Action: Political Science and Campaign Finance Reform. Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 2003), pp. 69-83. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3687813
Oyez (2022) Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2008/08-205
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