Opinions of a Wandering Waif

In this first post-Citizens United election, voters are the victims of a crime against democracy that the government seems unable, or unwilling, to stop despite it occurring right before our eyes.

Organizations are being set up under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code to manipulate the outcome of the mid-term elections. A 501(c)(4) is a lobbying organization that is not allowed to spend most of its time on electioneering.

Yet, these new organizations are spending massively on advertising for and against candidates, developing data bases of voters, creating messages for candidates and planning get-out-the-vote drives. These activities make them “political committees” that should obey election laws, including making the names of donors public.

Thus, political operatives, such as Karl Rove, are misusing the tax laws by creating organizations, like  American Crossroads, that use anonymous and unlimited donations from corporations and the super-rich to overwhelm the political process with attack ads against disfavored candidates.

This is more dangerous to America than al Qaeda.

(Source: azspot)

From People for the American Way email:

An important new poll commissioned by People For the American Way shows that Americans of every political stripe resoundingly reject the Roberts Court’s dangerous decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which opened the floodgates of unlimited corporate cash in our elections.

We should have a government of, by and for the people. The polling results show increasing concern among Americans that, in part because of the Court’s decision, which equates corporations with people, we are becoming a government of, by and for the corporations. The poll also shows broad awareness that when corporations spend unlimited amounts to influence the outcome of elections, it infringes on the rights of the rest of us by drowning out the voices of the average citizen.

The Court’s decision in Citizens United was so disastrous that voters overwhelmingly support a constitutional amendment to correct it.

Three-quarters of voters said that they support a constitutional amendment to limit the amount that corporations can spend in elections. A similar majority are more inclined to support a candidate who has spoken out in favor of an amendment. This support cuts across party and ideology, with majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents in support of the measure.

Leading up to Election Day, People For the American Way, along with Public Citizen and other allies, will be asking congressional candidates to pledge to support a constitutional amendment, and sharing that information with voters.

Here are some of the polling specifics:

• 85% of voters say that corporations have too much influence over the political system today while 93% say that average citizens have too little influence.
• 95% agree that “Corporations spend money on politics mainly to buy influence in government and elect people who are favorable to their financial interests.” (74% strongly agree)
• 85% disagree that “Corporations should be able to spend as much as they want to influence the outcome of elections because the Constitution protects freedom of speech.” (63% strongly disagree)
• 93% agree that “There should be clear limits on how much money corporations can spend to influence the outcome of an election.” (74% strongly agree)
• 77% think Congress should support an amendment to limit the amount U.S. corporations can spend to influence elections.
• 74% say that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate for Congress who pledged to support a constitutional amendment limiting corporate spending in elections.

You can read more about the poll here. (PDF)

Thank you for your continued support of PFAW’s campaign to restore Government By the People.

— Ben Betz, Online Communications Manager

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on President Obama’s remarks about the court during the State of the Union. Roberts also told the law school class today in Alabama ”he wonders if justices should attend State of the Union addresses anymore.”

via NBC’s Pete Williams

(via brooklynmutt)

Don’t like it, Roberts? Well, then maybe the Court should behave itself more appropriately. ~ waif

From People for the American Way:

Americans Want Limits on Corporate Cash in Elections, Would Support a Constitutional Amendment

A national poll of 1,200 Americans commissioned by People For the American Way shows that the Roberts Court is far out of step with the American public over corporate money in elections. It also shows broad support for a wide range of proposals to “fix” the Citizens United ruling, including legislation being introduced in Congress and a proposed constitutional amendment.

“Americans of all political stripes believe that corporations have too much influence in elections,” said Michael B. Keegan, President of People For the American Way. “Unlike the Roberts Court, the American people believe that Congress should be able to place limits on how much companies like ExxonMobil can spend to support or defeat candidates for public office. That’s not a liberal or Democratic position – it’s the American position.”

“In the days and weeks following the Citizens United ruling, many Republican leaders rejoiced at the prospect of more corporate money in elections,” said Keegan. “But our poll shows broad disagreement with the ruling and support for reform among Republicans and conservatives. This should be a wake-up call to Republican leadership. They have fallen out of touch with their base on this issue and should work with Democrats to restore reasonable limits.”

The results of the poll include the following:

• 78% believe that corporations should be limited in how much they can spend to influence elections, and 70% believe they already have too much influence over elections
• 73% believe Congress should be able to impose such limits, and 61% believe Congress has done too little in the past to limit corporate influence over elections
• Of the over 60% of Americans who have an opinion on a constitutional amendment to fix Citizens United, supports runs greater than 2 to 1 
• 82% support limits on electioneering by government contractors, and 87% support limits on bailout recipients
• 85% support a complete ban on electioneering by foreign corporations
• 75% believe that a publicly traded company should get shareholder approval before spending money in an election
• 69% think that the President, in the event of a Supreme Court vacancy, should nominate a Justice who supports limits on corporate spending in elections

“Democrats in Congress should take heed of public opinion and implement meaningful reforms well before the fall election,” said Keegan. “But it will take more than a legislative patch to fully mend the damage done by the Roberts Court. That is why People For the American Way has launched an ongoing campaign to amend the constitution. As our poll demonstrates – the more that Americans learn about an amendment to undo Citizens United, the more they support it.”

The full results of the poll, which was conducted by SurveyUSA, are available here: http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollPrint.aspx?g=05cabb5f-599f-47a8-98fb-e3e254e425e4&d=0

Here’s what YOU can do:

1. If you have not done so, please make sure you are counted in this growing national movement — sign our petition calling for a constitutional amendment (the only true comprehensive “fix”).

2. Get organizations and clubs of which you are a member to endorse our coalition’s resolution.

3. Call your members of Congress and tell them that you support a constitutional amendment to undo the hard the harm of Citizens United and save our elections from corporate domination. (Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121)

4. Join the nearly 15,000 people who have become fans of “Amending the Constitution so Corporations Can’t Buy Elections” on Facebook.

5. DONATE to our campaign — this will be a long and challenging campaign and we’ll need substantial resources to sustain our efforts (this current campaign-building phase is especially critical).

Lobby Firm Tells Clients How To Sway Elections While Avoiding ‘Public Scrutiny’ (via ryking)

Nice job, SCOTUS, look what you’ve wrought. ~ waif

Many “progressives” (even at the ACLU) who’ve sympathized with the Supreme Court’s rollback of almost all public regulation of corporate expenditures in elections accept the Court’s declaration that it’s defending “freedom of speech” against “censorship.”

It isn’t. Nothing in campaign-finance laws ever barred big business from inundating us with its “speech” and Congress with its lobbyists. This is a coup against something else.

An unusually impassioned New York Times editorial got this exactly right, but, this morning, Times reporter David Kirkpatrick (show-cased in the Week in Review section by its editor, the weasely Sam Tanenhaus) lazily shoots down the claim that corporate election money corrupts. No one can prove it, sniffs the newshound.

Maybe not, but the bigger danger is that debate among citizens is being skewed and drowned by simulated voices of non-corporeal (often non-American) entities that can’t be swayed by debate, as citizens sometimes can, to rise above their bottom lines. The First Amendment wasn’t written to protect business corporations, as is strongly suggested by its specific exemption of “the press” from regulation of speech. Other corporations are fair game. Citizens can speak for business interests anytime. So can corporations’ paid voice-overs - when we, who created them, allow it.

I made this point here below, but not in neon. So I give the floor to “Man’s best friend,” who posted this comment there: “Corporations are a legal invention whose sole purpose is to protect property rights… They can enter into contracts, which govern the exchange of money and property (or services…). They can sue or be sued, impose or have imposed liens on property. There are NO rights of natural persons that appertain to corporations other than those connected with property rights. They can’t vote. They have no 5th amendment protection against self-incrimination. They do not have free speech rights.”

Get it? Conservative justices pretended not to, thereby violating the Court’s and the republic’s most basic principles. So did the Emperor Augustus, who permitted Romans to continue to hold noisy elections with “all the wild inconveniences of democracy” even as he and others drained the fading republic’s offices of power and honor. So now, too, with Roberts court majority and our already enfeebled Congress.

————

Emphasis added.

The case didn’t just give corporations greater voice — it changed the rules about what corruption means in election funding.

Yesterday the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on corporate independent expenditures in Citizens United v. FEC. Before Citizens United, corporations were not allowed to spend money from their general treasuries to call for the election or defeat of federal candidates close to Election Day, even if they did so without consulting with the candidate. In striking down the federal ban, the Supreme Court overruled two of its decisions: Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, decided in 1990, and McConnell v. FEC, decided less than 7 years ago.

The decision has been met with howls of protest from reformers: The Supreme Court overruled its own precedent! A century-long tradition of regulation is in jeopardy! Corporations will flood the airwaves and further corrupt our already corrupt political process! It’s “a disaster for the American people,” says Fred Wertheimer of the campaign finance reform organization Democracy 21.

It’s not surprising that reformers are outraged. Austin has long been the darling of reformers; it’s as close as the Court has ever come to saying Congress can regulate campaign finance to promote “equality.” Reformers have long argued that reform should level the playing field between the monied and the everyday citizen. The Court, however, has generally disagreed. It has repeatedly rejected the equality rationale and, with the exception of Austin, insisted that preventing corruption is the only legitimate grounds for regulation.

Still, as a practical matter, the opinion is just one more step in the direction the Court was already heading. As Nate Persily, director of the Center for Law and Politics at Columbia points out, earlier cases had already substantially limited Congress’s power to restrict independent corporate expenditures; Citizens United was just the last nail in the coffin. The real damage to the cause of reform came earlier, with cases that made less of a splash but probably mattered more. An earlier case, for instance, licensed corporations to run independent ads attacking or supporting candidates provided they stopped just short of telling us how to vote. As a practical matter, there’s not much distance between an ad that tells voters to “call Senator X and tell her to stop being mean to puppies” and one that tells voters to “vote against Senator X.” Moreover, whatever the reform community thought of Austin, Supreme Court observers have long thought Austin was a goner. Even the Solicitor General was unwilling to defend the decision’s equality rationale.

The truth is that the most important line in the decision was not the one overruling Austin. It was this one: “ingratiation and access … are not corruption.” For many years, the Court had gradually expanded the corruption rationale to extend beyond quid pro quo corruption (donor dollars for legislative votes). It had licensed Congress to regulate even when the threat was simply that large donors had better access to politicians or that politicians had become “too compliant with the[ir] wishes.” Indeed, at times the Court went so far as to say that even the mere appearance of “undue influence” or the public’s “cynical assumption that large donors call the tune” was enough to justify regulation. “Ingratiation and access,” in other words, were corruption as far as the Court was concerned. Justice Kennedy didn’t say that the Court was overruling these cases. But that’s just what it did.

If the Court rigidly insists that Congress can regulate only to prevent quid-pro-corruption, narrowly defined, then Citizens United has implications that extend well beyond what corporations can do. Justice Kennedy’s own opinion even hints at the possibility, as he notes that the evidence supporting the “soft money” limits – which apply across the board — rests on evidence about the connection between money and political access. While Justice Kennedy backed off from saying anything definitive, we may find that it was the Court’s discussion of corruption, not corporations, that matters most in the long run.

Emphasis added.