"Corporations" And Free Speech - The Money Trap
The Supreme Court recently found a part of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance law to be unconstitutional for having violated the First Amendment.
I haven't read the law or all of the opinion. Both deal with hyper technical legal arguments about "corporate" political contributions. Some corporate contributions leading up to an election are now OK. Others remain illegal.
The problem to me results from our fixation with corporations; and, our basic misunderstanding of what a corporation is. It is a "legal fiction." Under most laws it is treated as a "person." The creation of corporations as "people" was the result of the need to provide a vehicle for capital investment while limiting the liability of the investors. Corporations at law were associated with money making.
Beginning in the last century, non-money making enterprises became "corporations;" but, their reasons for doing so were liability limitation and tax reduction. The money making reason is not involved.
We as Americans still see corporations in the light of their robber baron ancestors. We are distrustful of their motives, in many cases with good reason. We don't want them using their "ill gotten" gains to influence our elections.
But, we also believe in free speech and our right to gather together to promote or oppose public initiatives. The rub in modern society is that talking and gathering together cost money. Lots of money. The vehicles we use are "corporations." The N.R.A., N.A.R.A.L., Operation Rescue, the A.C.L.U.
These entities and their members don't have a profit motive. They have an influence motive. Why should we have laws that restrict their (more accurately, their members') ability to get out their message? To my mind, we shouldn't.
McCain-Feingold restricted a Wisconsin abortion rights group's ability to run ads opposing pro-choice and a Senator who was pro-choice in the sixty days leading up to the election for his Senate seat. The Supreme Court, using some really tortured reasoning, decided that the group should be able to run the ads. As fearful as I am of the Roberts Court, it got it right as to the result on this issue. It didn't go far enough.
Whether on constitutional, or common sense grounds, we should stop restricting speech by people or groups of people.
2 comments:
The problem I have with the money=speech equation is that the more money one has, the more "speech" one is capable of, which to me seems undemocratic.
On the other hand, I have no problem with those who band together with other like-minded individuals in order to make their political voice more effective. Too many want to waste time tilting at windmills by themselves when they should get together with others who share their views, or work with organizations lobbying for issues they care about. Corporations are not inherently evil, but their power needs to be checked by organizations working in the public and worker's interest (such as unions), and that is the weak part of the equation at present.
Hey Doc,
I go back and forth in my head about individual caps on contributions.
To take the argument too far, since I have more money than some, if I choose to spend it on political speech, I am then acting undemocratically with respect to my fellow, but poorer, citizens?
I'm kind of leaning to no caps but required published disclosure of who gives to whom. Let Bill Gates, Rupert Murdock and others give to their hearts' content, but let me know that it's being done so I can match their largesse with their chosen candidates' actions.
PACs made up of executives and lobbyists have the same money results as that system without the disclosure.
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