Once Again Degrading Free Speech In The Service Of Buying Elections
Campaign spending has long been a slippery slope, and finding a balance between private and public interests and wealthy benefactors and nickel-dime contributors has been difficult. But the goal — trying to mitigate the impact of big bucks on election campaigns — has been a worthy one. And one that the Roberts Supreme Court has once again determined to be less worthy than allowing corporations and others with deep pockets to inordinately influence if not outright buy elections.
Coming on the heels of the Citizens United ruling in which a narrow (and of course conservative) majority of justices astonishingly conferred free speech rights on the Fortune 500′s finest when it came to unbridled campaign contributions, the same five justices this week struck down the Arizona Clean Elections Act, a 1998 ballot initiative that gave public money to candidates who agreed to limit their personal spending to $500, participate in at least one debate, and return unspent money.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts banged a by-now familiar drum, declaring that “Laws like Arizona’s matching funds provision that inhibit robust and wide-open political debate without sufficient justification cannot stand.”
For good measure, Justice Samuel Alito called the law “an unprecedented penalty on any candidate who robustly exercises” free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, and none of the majority justices were swayed by Justice Elena Kagan’s view that “What the law does — all the law does — is fund more speech.”
Like Citizens United, the decision was an astonishing leap of legal logic when viewed in an historic context but not unexpected from a court that has been slavishly pro-big business while chipping away at the rights of mere individuals. Several other states have similar laws and you can expect them to also die painful deaths as the court marches toward its eventual goal, which is undermine any form of public financing that fetters big business and fat cats.
10 Responses to “Once Again Degrading Free Speech In The Service Of Buying Elections”
So, as the pendulum swings, it will swing back eventually. The same contempt and distrust that people have for the government will be concentrated on the large businesses and corporations that could buy elections. Why people have so much faith in corporations OR government is beyond me, I generally distrust both.
The Court’s Chamber of Commerce pleasing rulings become more threadbare with each new one. What they have said with this ruling is that not only do corporations and the wealthy have the constitutional right to more free speech than people who have less money, that right to steamroller elections should be protected from any government attempts to prevent it. In other words, it is Citizen’s United on steroids.
Will the chirping crickets admit that the Roberts Court is now an activist Corporate Conservative court.
I have often asked people on this forum why should we listen to corporate executive’s views on public policies. By law they are required to pursue any and every course possible to maximize profits for their stockholders. Not to provide for the general welfare of the nation. Not to do what is best for the long term interests of the country. They are legally charged to do one and only one thing, produce profits for their shareholders.
This is why we must seriously discount and should largely ignore their policy recommendations. By law those policies can have only one objective, to produce more profits for their shareholders.
This is why we should have more faith in government than in corporations. We are the government, unless we continue to sell it to the corporations.
Why should government fund any candidate?
Why should government fund some candidates, but not others?
That’s what you have to ask.
I have no problem asking that question, but it’s secondary to the question of whether a mercenary govt was ever the intention of the founders.
Generally speaking it’s a fact that the more money you spend on an election the better your chances of winning. Not always – but most of the time.
If the public decides it wants a more even approach between candidates in an election so that policy provisions can come to the forefront why should that be outlawed? I thought we lived in a Democracy.
The expression ” money is the mother’s milk of politics” is becoming more true by the month with the Citizens United decision and now this. I can see the day in the not too near future when candidates favored by corporations and moneyed interests outspend normal candidates by a factor of 100 or 1000 to one.
Justice Elena Kagan’s view that “What the law does — all the law does — is fund more speech.”
Have to agree with Kagen here. I think the Roberts court screwed up on this one.
On merkin’s comments on why we should listen to corporate executive views, the best response is that it’s inconsistent to love employment and hate employers, and corporations are employers. The government must facilitate business while at the same time regulating it adequately. The government cannot treat corporations as an enemy, there has to be an uneasy alliance. That alliance is heavily and continually flawed and should be improved, but it has to exist.
J. Spencer: The questions I asked were crucial, whereas you asked merely a rhetorical question about what doesn’t exist.
DaGoat is onto one thing, which Kagan hints at identifying: what the state was doing was engaging in affirmative action for campaigns. That may be nice in theory, but why should you have to spend you own money while your competitor gets subsidized (by you, among others)?
(Fans of “alternative transportation,” i.e., substitutes for and competitors with the automobile, have asked this question when discussing the railroads and railroading. The competition was and is heavily subsidized publically. Perhaps this may help…)
DaGoat wrote:
It’s like police and “civilians” every day in our lives. Do we want cops to think and act as though there are only cops and scum? Yet lefties view business and businesspeople as scum and want them to be treated that way — while expecting them to be vast sources of tax revenue as if they’ll accept any and all treatment(!).