After the disastrous ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, the corporate lobby is gearing up to take down state laws designed to limit corporate influence and corruption in government.
In Minnesota, state law says it is illegal for corporations to try to influence elections by funding campaigns to defeat or endorse candidates. Now the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce is suing to make Minnesota’s laws line up with the Supreme Court’s decision to open the floodgates to corporate cash.
Twenty-three other states have made it a priority to limit corporate influence in elections, and all will likely see similar challenges from the Chamber and other groups that are all-too-eager to use their new power in an effort to defeat progressive candidates.
Meanwhile, bills in states like Iowa and Maryland are moving forward to prevent corporate money from overwhelming the peoples’ voice in their elections, but all will face serious challenges.
Sadly, Columbia Law School professor and election-law expert Nathaniel Persily is right when he says the states’ powers are limited to ”nip[ping] at the edges to make it more difficult for corporations to spend this kind of money.” And that’s why we need a constitutional amendment to prevent corporations from dominating our elections.
USA Today provides a useful overview of the current campaign finance battlegrounds.
[...] In Iowa, corporations would not only be required to get approval from a majority of shareholders before spending money on independent political ads that refer to candidates, but those commercials would have to identify the CEOs of companies underwriting them. Labor unions also would have to show that their members support the spending. [...]
• Maryland. Eight campaign-finance bills have been introduced, including one that would require shareholder approval for the spending and content of any campaign material a corporation distributes. Delegate Samuel “Sandy” Rosenberg, a Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, said he hopes it has a “tempering effect” on outside spending in state races.
• Arizona. A measure in the state Legislature would require corporations and unions that undertake independent spending in candidate campaigns to register with state regulators and disclose their spending. The bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Robert Burns, the Republican president of the state Senate and Sen. Jorge Luis Garcia the top Democrat in the chamber. “It will be a relatively fast-moving bill,” Burns said. “I don’t anticipate any problems.”
Some states are taking the opposite approach:
• Minnesota. A pending bill would repeal a law banning independent expenditures by corporations in order to comply with the Jan. 21 court ruling.
• Colorado. Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter has asked the state Supreme Court to evaluate how the high court’s ruling affects language in the state constitution that outlaws corporations and unions from spending money to elect or defeat candidates. (If the state Supreme Court determines the law is unconstitutional, companies and labor organizations could immediately begin raising money and it would not require voter approval.)
Pamela Alfred
Thom Hartmann, who has a spot on Air America, had an eloquent and historically accurate spot last year about the potential consequence of the issue facing the Supreme Court months before the fatal vote. http://www.thomhartmann.com
Unfortunately most of America view mindless, corporate ad galore TV, learning nothing, buying junk or meds and get smart by the feeding on mindless one-liners fed from pretend news.
When people decide to think on their own instead of feeding at the trough of ignorance, maybe the impact of this decision is the necessary vehicle to shake loose the hypnosis of corporate sponsored television and realize the reality of corporate sponsored politics.
March 5, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Gary Clark
Spot on, Pamela. My sentiments exactly, although I don’t see the smartening up happening anytime soon.
March 6, 2010 at 11:26 am
Marie
Perhaps we should petition the FCC to create a rule that would enforce equal air time for both sides to broadcast their ads. Just because your side has the most money, doesn’t allow you the right to dominate the air waves. Perhaps it might also stop the bombardment of pharma ads during prime time news that seem more to convince people they need drugs.
But ultimately, public campaign financing is the best option, with equal air time on our pubic air waves.
How can we challenge they supreme court ruling? We need some really smart lawyers to represent the “We the people”, vs corporate citizens.
Some one will make money off of this, for sure.
March 7, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Pamela Alfred
RE ? by Marie: How can we challenge the(y) supreme court ruling?
“We must pass a constitutional amendment to ensure corporate money does not overwhelm our democracy and clarify that the First Amendment is for people — not corporations. Add your name to the petition to Congress today!”
Click on the blue words ‘constitutional amendment’ in the above article in the paragraph that begins with “Sadly”.
It’ll take you to this petition site: http://action.citizen.org/t/10315/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=2190
March 7, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Steven
Dear Marie:
Back in the 1980′s the Regan administration went to court disputing what was known as the fairness doctrine,asserting that it was robbing them of there right to free speech. The fairness doctrine stated that radio and TV had to give equal airtime to opposing viewpoints. The Regan supreme court sided with the administration and that was the birth of hate radio and TV and the rise of Limbaugh and O’rielly and the wedge that was driven between the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
March 8, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Charles Mann
post the names of those who wish to subvert our country to turn it into a goverment controlled country.like China. We need a President to bring it back to the Country I grew up in BORN in 1928 Charles S Mann San Bernardino Calif. illegals want to be treated special FREE to them What I worked a life time to get U.S. Navy The only answer is VOTE those bums out of office. TIME limits NO MORE than 4 years then out of a job. when they take the OATH of office They must follow the oath as it is or be terminated from office. NOT even the President can tell them to vioate the oath of office period. If they cant up hold the oath, why have one?
March 14, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Pamela Alfred
To have had the philosophy and attitude of Louis D. Brandeis, United States Supreme Court Justice from 1916 to 1939, on the current Court would have helped.
In a 1905 address to law students and others at Harvard, he explained his philosophy:
“The great achievement of the English-speaking people is the attainment of liberty through law. It is natural, therefore, that those who have been trained in the law should have borne an important part in that struggle for liberty and in the government which resulted . . . .
Instead of holding a position of independence, between the wealthy and the people, prepared to curb the excesses of either, able lawyers have, to a large extent, allowed themselves to become adjuncts of great corporations and have neglected the obligation to use their powers for the protection of the people. We hear much of the ‘corporation lawyer,’ and far too little of the ‘people’s lawyer.’ The great opportunity of the American Bar is and will be to stand again as it did in the past, ready to protect also the interests of the people.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Brandeis
March 15, 2010 at 1:21 am