How Supreme Court ruling will shape elections
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The Supreme Court’s landmark opinion last week may have lasting effects on how US politics are conducted in the future. The decision on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission says that corporations have the same rights as individuals under the First Amendment, and can spend unlimited amounts of money on political commercials.
Over the weekend, President Obama sharply criticized the ruling.
“I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest,” said the president. “The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to lobbyists in Washington, or more power to the special interests to tip the outcomes of elections.”
Former FEC Chairman, Scott Thomas, says the ruling adds more complexity to how the FEC monitors election contributions.
“The question will move to ‘what is a contribution,’ and how is a contribution really different from an ‘independent expenditure,’ which the courts freed corporations to make.
“The toughest area will really relate to this concept of … a ‘coordinated communication.’ For years a coordinated communication is treated as a contribution, so that’s where the real battle will lay.”
In other words, if a political candidate has a certain amount of interaction with a corporation, and the corporation pays for TV ads that support the candidate, the ads may be considered an election contribution.
And, when multinational corporations enter the picture, Thomas says, “… it’ll be a mess.”
“There is going to be this potential for domestic subsidiaries of foreign-owned or controlled companies, to use this new allowance that the Supreme Court has carved out,” he predicts.
Thomas believes the ruling will test the ability of the FEC to enforce campaign finance laws. “If the FEC is very, very weak in terms of trying to establish rules about how to define whether a domestic corporation really should be allowed to operate on its own as if it were not a foreign-controlled company, then we’ve got a problem. But the FEC is tough.”
See details of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
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