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US Supreme Court Expected Political Ad Transparency
T Murphy writes "The Supreme Court, when ruling that corporate and union political donations were allowed under free speech, assumed the source of the donation would be disclosed immediately under current donation laws. Due to loopholes, this has not been the case, eliminating the hoped-for transparency the Supreme Court ruled to be vital to democracy. Justice Kennedy, who sided with the majority on the ruling, has been called naive for his expectation that there would be greater transparency. In the meantime, campaign spending for House candidates alone is expected to reach $1.5 billion."
Did you read the same Citizens United ruling that I did? Did you read then Solicitor General Kagan's argument that basically said "Yeah, this legislation gives the Feds the power to ban books, but that's irrelevant because we would never do such a thing."? The 1st amendment says plainly enough that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. The old law prohibited Citizens United from publishing a film about a political candidate within a certain timeframe preceding a Federal election. Such a law is not compatible with the 1st amendment if free speech is to have any meaning.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
If it weren't for anonymous political speech we wouldn't have the Federalist papers.
The problem is you're assuming the corporations are controlled by a large group.
I'm sure that in some cases, if not most, these decisions are ultimately made by one or a few with all the power of the many. Just because a corporation is composed of thousands of workers or owned by thousands of investors doesn't mean that these people have any control. Moreover, most of these corporations are not formed for political purposes or around political ideas.
I'd be surprised if I read a story of any of these million dollar corporations holding a vote amongst shareholders whether and to whom they should donate a political contribution.
Endorsing a candidate is fundamentally different from having the ability to run billions of dollars in ads, especially when the endorsement says "THE NEW YORK TIMES ENDORSES X CANDIDATE" and the ads say "Paid for by random mysterious group #50,982".
The New York Times is a for-profit corporation that's been endorsing political candidates for decades.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Back in January 2010, Obama gave the State of the Union right after the Court handed down the Citizens United decision. Obama told Congress, with several of the Supremes sitting in the front row, that the decision would allow foreign corporations to influence US elections, which most Americans still realize is a terrible development. Justice Alito, who had just decided in the majority to allow corporations "free speech" by spending unlimited money in US political campaigning, was mad: he angrily mouthed "not true". The corporate mass media attacked Obama for "picking on the justices" by warning Congress and "embarrassing" the court, but of course failed to examine whether it was true.
Less than a year later, we see it was totally true. We see that foreign corporations have invested huge amounts of money campaigning in the 2010 election. Republican candidates have gotten hundreds of $millions spent to elect them, sponsored by corporations including many foreign ones. The "US" Chamber of Commerce (Inc.) collects money from lots of foreign corporations, especially Indian ones that want US jobs shipped there, foreign banks like Credit Suisse and HSBC that want financial reform repealed, and even corporations owned by foreign kings, like the Emir of Bahrain. Foreign kings are spending more in US election campaigns than US citizens.
Whether you think that's OK or not (it is very not OK), Alito was totally wrong. And a jerk about it. Not surprising, since Alito was installed by Bush. Alito swore in his Senate confirmation hearings that he would respect established law, but his Citizens United decision overturned lots of established law, went against the basic understanding that corporations are not people, and recklessly unleashed foreign corporate power on US election campaigns.
He should be impeached. Then he'll be free to skip the State of the Union the way he plans to from now on because he can't stand criticism of his abominable rulings.
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make install -not war