In the final three months of 2011, the campaign to re-elect President Obama and the Democratic National Committee raised $68 million -- an impressive sum, all the more impressive because it was donated by 583,000 Americans who gave an average of $55 each.
But earlier this month at a retreat at the exclusive Renaissance Esmeralda resort in California, the conservative billionaire Koch brothers said they would donate a combined $60 million to Super PACs to defeat President Obama. Two billionaire brothers with opinions radically at variance with most of America are poised to cancel out the efforts of half a million American citizens.
To understand this gross perversion of the political process, we don't have to wait until the general election and the avalanche of negative campaign ads against the president. We can look right now at the primary election for the Republican presidential nomination, where we have seen a handful of billionaires and Super PACs outspend all of the Republican candidates and help turn that contest into a circus. The sad reality is the Super PACs have shaped the nominating contest more than the candidates.
That's the way it's been since the Supreme Court's tragic decision in Citizens United, which overturned a century of settled law and opened this floodgate of unlimited campaign spending, drowning out small donors and the individual citizens that most of us learned in school were the cornerstone of our democracy. This Supreme Court ruling was based on the perverse idea that the court's out-of-touch majority somehow felt corporations should enjoy the same constitutional rights as people.
This threatens the integrity of the political process, not just from the appearance of corruption but actually blatantly distorting the process. As companies and sham independent organizations that are actually run by candidates' friends and employees blanket the airwaves with an avalanche of vicious negative advertising, now somehow they're protected under a First Amendment right to free speech which would be beyond the comprehension of our founding fathers.
Mitt Romney may believe that corporations are people, but do the rest of us need a comedian like Stephen Colbert to remind us that only people are people?
There's an outside chance of relief in the form of a century-old Montana law banning corporate corruption in their political landscape, which was passed after an egregious and well-documented abuse in Montana. A case about this law would actually provide the Supreme Court a lifeline to climb down from the precarious and dangerous Constitutional ledge, a ledge that they have not only crawled out onto, but also dragged the American people and the political process onto with their Citizens United decision. There's a chance that the Supreme Court will use this Montana law to re-establish the basic parameters protecting the political process from the corruption of that unregulated corporate money.
But in the meantime, it's important that we advance a constitutional amendment that would eliminate the notion of corporate personhood, explicitly stating that the rights of natural persons may only be afforded to real people, not corporations. And as we work to overturn Citizens United and ban corporate personhood, people should not have to wait to judge whether a candidate is representing the public or representing their benefactors. We should pass the DISCLOSE Act to require political spending by corporations and individuals to be fully transparent. We should be advancing in other efforts in the regulatory process to make sure that shareholders of corporations have the opportunity to at least know and maybe have a say on what the corporations that they are supposed to own are doing on their behalf. We should support HR 1404, the Fair Elections Now Act, to promote public campaign financing to ensure that the public's voice is not drowned out by moneyed special interests.
The Supreme Court's decision on Citizens United was based on fantasies: the fantasy that vast sums of hidden, special-interest money are not inherently corrupting to the political process; the fantasy that corporations should be afforded all the rights of individual citizens; and the fantasy that Super PACs run by individuals who are the closest of allies, friends, and employees of candidates are somehow independent of their campaigns.
What is not a fantasy is what we see right now on the political landscape: the terrifying effect of Super PACs and the flood of money hopelessly distorting campaigns. We should all fight to change it.
Follow Rep. Earl Blumenauer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/repblumenauer
“.The right to contribute to political campaigns and political parties is held solely by individual citizens”.
the RDA renders moot concerns about corporate personage as pertains to campaign finance. What this powerful statement also does is to eliminate political parties’ contributions to campaigns. This eliminates much of the financial control the political parties have over our representatives. All one has to do is look at the prevalence of party line voting to realize how detrimental party influence is to our effective governance.
The RDA proposal has a framework that does not rely on public campaign finance, would work at the federal, state, and local level with limited required bureaucracy and no controlling organization as to who or what party would receive funding. We would ask Rep. Earl Blumenauer to consider introducing and supporting the RDA http://www.renewdemocracy.org/
Also, ending corporate personhood does not imply ending corporations. It just implies ending their ability to claim rights intended for people to protect themselves from regulation.
Read the decision. There is nothing about corporate personhood there.
And corporation comes from the Latin "corpus" meaning body. It's a legal person by definition, even without any court rulings.
public financing all the way and a VERY reduced primary and general election
As long as corporations pay taxes, they should be afforded the right to participate in the political process. If they're not taxed, then I concur their voice should be limited or non-existent in the political process.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
MARCH 17, 2005
Mr. REID introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration
S.678 A BILL
Paragraph (22) of section 301 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 431(22)) is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: "Such term shall not include communications over the Internet.".
Lovell v. City of Griffin SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 303 U.S. 444 Argued February 4, 1938 Decided March 28, 1938
The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. These indeed have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty, as the pamphlets of Thomas Paine and others in our own history abundantly attest. The press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion. What we have had recent occasion to say with respect to the vital importance of protecting this essential liberty from every sort of infringement need not be repeated.
To restore equal protection under law the press exemption must be extended to citizens and groups!
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Unfortunately, those first 'rights' are specific, i.e. Congress shall make no laws. If you believe that political speech should be free (and you should), then Congress can make no law abridging those rights - no matter who is the speaker.
The problem comes in the equivalence of money to speech. THAT is where the SCOTUS is wrong. Money, in and of itself, is not speech! It may purchase time to speak, or a medium to do so. However, the donation of money is NOT SPEECH. Therefore, I'd propose that Congress should indicate that corporations do in fact have the right of free speech, but must do so as themselves (and not bundle, or obfuscate the source),
The right of the press is likewise protected. However, part of the problem comes when the media is corporate-owned - and instead of earning income via sales of product, they instead make their money by selling 'time' or 'space' within their medium. Advertising is not free speech!
You wouldn't say the government could ban the sale of Bibles without violating freedom of religion, would you? Would forbidding payments to doctors for abortions not violate Roe v. Wade? Could the government say you have a right to an attorney - but you can't pay him?
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17730102
Prior to President Nixon’s second term, some of our nation’s largest newspapers found themselves in federal court losing antitrust suits which accused them of purchasing financially troubled regional newspapers and then pretending to compete with them while rigging prices.
The Newspaper Preservation Act was working its way through congress and was designed to grant antitrust relief to the affected newspapers. Richard Nixon and his, Attorney General, were on record as strongly opposed to the passage of the Newspaper Preservation Act.
A newspaper executive wrote a letter to President Nixon as his re-election approached. The letter reminded President Nixon that the nation’s largest Newspaper chains published in those states that had the largest number of electoral votes. The carefully worded letter reminded President Nixon that it could be difficult to be re-elected without their editorial support.
Nixon reversed his position and convinced Congress to pass the Newspaper Preservation Act.
Following reports of serious financial abuses in the 1972 Presidential campaign, Congress amended the FECA in 1974 to set limits on contributions by individuals, political parties and PACs.
The newly minted campaign laws should have chastised the 4th estate as well as Nixon? Instead the Federal Election Campaign Reform Act exempted corporate media from campaign laws and created the “State Approved Press”.
The first federal law in this arena, passed in 1907, was also a ban on corporate contributions to campaigns. The law was dubbed the Tillman Act, after its sponsor, South Carolina senator "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman. Tillman wrote and said little of his motives for sponsoring the ban on corporate contributions, but he hated President ¬Theodore Roosevelt and appears to have wanted to embarrass the president (who had relied heavily on corporate funding in his 1904 election campaign). Tillman's racial politics also clearly contributed to his interest in controlling corporate spending: Many corporations opposed the racial segregation that was at the core of Tillman's political agenda. Corporations did not want to pay for two sets of rail cars, double up on restrooms and fountains, or build separate entrances for customers of different races. They also wanted to take advantage of inexpensive black labor, while Tillman sought to keep blacks out of the work force.
Corporations supported Republicans, and Tillman — a Democrat, like most post-war Southern whites — often bragged of his role in perpetrating voter fraud and intimidation in the presidential election of 1876 in order to overthrow South Carolina's Republican reconstruction government. It is clear, then, that Tillman was no "good government" reformer; and far from being born of lofty ideals, federal campaign-finance regulations were, from their inception, tied to questionable efforts to gain partisan advantage.
Meanwhile, Congress making efforts to pass the DISCLOSE Act to require political spending by corporations and individuals to be fully transparent should stem the avalanche of Koch bros. type of money. Let us all press for that.
Earl is right -- Citizens United was based on a fantasy of Justice Kennedy about the power of cable news drowning out voices of poor silent corporations.
The press exemption divides participation in America’s political process into two categories: The regulated majority, every living U.S. Citizen, candidate for office, political party and political organization and the unregulated commercial media.
The press exemption makes a distinction where there is no real difference: the media is extremely powerful by any measure, a "special interest" by any definition, and heavily engaged in the "issue advocacy" and "independent expenditure" realms of political persuasion that most editorial boards find so objectionable when anyone other than a media outlet engages in it.
A newspaper must at all times antagonize the selfish interests of that very class which furnishes the larger part of a newspaper's income... The press in this country is dominated by the wealthy few...that it cannot be depended upon to give the great mass of the people that correct information concerning political, economical and social subjects which it is necessary that the mass of people Shall have in order that they vote...in the best way to protect themselves from the brutal force and chicanery of the ruling and employing classes. (E.W. Scripps).
It is normal for all large businesses to make serious efforts to influence the news, to avoid embarrassing publicity, and to maximize sympathetic public opinion and government policies. Now they own most of the news media that they wish to influence. - Ben Bagdikian
Corporations are businesses. They are not natural citizens and have none of the rights granted to U.S. citizens. Period.
Who is coordinating the grassroots advocacy needed to pass the DISCLOSE Act and HR 1404, the Fair Elections Now Act? Please ask Huffiington Post editors and other online news media to publish contact info for the organization(s) that are working this issue. I have emailed my Congressional delegation about this issue. However, I am only one voter and we need a big presence to reclaim the rights that have been stolen from natural citizens.