Will limitless corporate spending on campaigns compromise the integrity of the Supreme Court?

Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems: What Citizens United v. FEC means for the future of American politics.

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the United Sates Supreme Court ruled in favor of Citizens United and in doing so overruled past precedents regarding corporate spending on campaign elections, namely, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) (holding that corporations were prohibited from funding the support or opposition of political/judicial candidates) and parts of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003). 

A couple of things need to be mentioned before we can really get at the heart of this decision. First, because of the ruling in the 1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, for all practical legal purposes, corporations are people because they are larger representatives of their collective shareholders and are therefore entitled to (essentially) all the same constitutional rights as any other legal person. 

Next, as it pertains to the Citizens United case, it is because of corporate personhood that the Supreme Court ruled that the limiting of corporate spending on election campaigns is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

The Supreme Court’s ruling is also notable because it struck down a provision in the McCain-Feingold Act that banned for-profit and not-for-profit corporations and unions from publically airing “electioneering communications” 30 days prior to a primary election or 60 days prior to a general election. 

I guess the question I found myself asking throughout all of this (and I assume you probably are as well at this point in the article) is “why should I really care about a bunch of old men and women sitting around in fancy robes talking about a bunch of legal jargon?” The answer is fairly straightforward: money talks. And corporations have a lot of money. 

You can argue on a theoretical level that corporations are legal persons because of their responsibility to their shareholders, but ultimately, they aren’t because they don’t regularly consult their shareholders when it comes to their political funding. Furthermore, to give corporations free reign in their support or opposition of candidates is morally questionable because it’s very difficult to make the argument that politicians and/or elected judges will not be corrupted or swayed by their corporate sponsorship.

And it is this last point that concerns me the most and that I do not feel was adequately addressed by Justice Kennedy in his decision summary, especially considering the fact that it was only a year ago that he saw this as a serious concern in the Caperton case. 

Until this recent decision, the Roberts Court has been true to its word in its incremental and minimalist approach, but the ruling on Citizens United which could have been more narrow and did not necessarily have to overturn Austin marks a change in direction for the Supreme Court as well as in our political system.

As American citizens, we expect our democratically elected leaders and judges to maintain a certain degree of impartiality and moral character as they are the individuals who are making the laws that govern our lives and protect our civil liberties. While it is impossible to tell at this point, I feel that the deconstruction of campaign finance reform is setting a precedent for the continuation of decisions that will continue to delegitimize our political system as politicians and judges are increasingly enticed to pander to the interests of the corporations in favor of jingling pockets.