Lets Talk About Citizens United

[Heywood]

Can anyone tell me where Professor Smith(a former FEC chairman) goes wrong? Be specific.

[LostLocke]

Maybe it's just the fact that I don't know much about corporate or civil law, and also maybe that I really don't give a rat's ass about them either, but I can't find Waldo in this picture.

So I give up, where did he go wrong?

[Heywood]

Maybe it's just the fact that I don't know much about corporate or civil law, and also maybe that I really don't give a rat's ass about them either, but I can't find Waldo in this picture.

So I give up, where did he go wrong?

I keep hearing people whine about how terrible a decision Citizens United was so I have been looking into it to find out why.

Here is a video with the opposite view.....but its all opinion about how she thinks the world should be and not a cogent legal argument. Its all about demonizing those things she does not like. Are there any objective reason to dislike Citizens United?

[abaris]

In case, this is a real question and not just baiting.

The main problem I see, is citizens united advocating money in politics. That gives corporations an immense leverage over normal citizens. It advocates politics being for sale to the highest bidder.

But one can't make a point of something being objectively wrong, since some people like to be fucked deep and hard. So, it boils down to personal taste.

[Heywood]

In case, this is a real question and not just baiting.

The main problem I see, is citizens united advocating money in politics. That gives corporations an immense leverage over normal citizens. It advocates politics being for sale to the highest bidder.

But one can't make a point of something being objectively wrong, since some people like to be fucked deep and hard. So, it boils down to personal taste.

You are conflating a problem with a court decision.

Corporations are tools of citizens. The Annie Leonard's video railing against Citizen United was produce by Free Range Studios....which I understand to be a privately held corporation. Her video could have been banned by the government if Citizen United was upheld. The law that was stuck down wasn't the way to go about solving what you see to be a problem. The court did right by striking it down.

Now I don't like Annie Leonard...she's a moron as far as I am concerned....but she has a right to free speech....and she has a right to use the power of a corporation to make her message heard.

[DeistPaladin]

I keep hearing people whine about how terrible a decision Citizens United was so I have been looking into it to find out why.

I'm at work and so I can't watch the videos but good for you that you're now trying to educate yourself. Maybe it's just the reading part you have problems with.

Anyway, the problem with Citizens United is a fundamental misunderstanding of corporate personhood.

What Incorporation Is and Isn't
Incorporation is a process that a business undergoes to establish it as a "person" for purposes of asset ownership, responsibility for liabilities and taxation. The corporation is a legal entity separate from the person/people who founded it or who owns/own it.

Incorporation was only intended to be an accounting tool, not as a means to create a literal person in the constitutional rights sense.

It's an important technique accountants use to distinguish who owns what assets (building, land, production equipment, supplies, etc.), who is responsible for certain liabilities (the business may take out a bank loan, issue bonds, get a mortgage on its property, etc.), who the owners are (stockholders), and what taxes the entity owes (the government doesn't bill the owners but the business itself).

The Supreme Court heard the word "person" and decided that the corporation should be treated like a person in terms of the Bill of Rights. Corporations, by the majority of the court's thinking, should also enjoy rights to free speech which should include spending as much money as they like trying to campaign and express the corporate opinions.

This ruling opened the door for the Hobby Lobby case where corporations also have religious beliefs and rights to exercise their religion, including the right to dictate religious beliefs and practices to employees.

What's next? Voting rights for corporations?

Other Consequences
Before the ruling, there were already problems with American democracy and questions whether money speaks louder than votes. Politicians were arguably already more concerned about special interest lobbyists and gaining sufficient funding then they are about what the people think about an issue.



After the ruling, the flood gates were wide open and money has come to dominate elections. What's worse, is much of this money is untraceable. Who bought these commercials and for what interest? China could enter our elections and start influencing them for all we know.

Between this ruling and their gutting of the Voting Rights Act, the Supremes have taken our nation one long step from shifting from democracy to oligarchy.

[Heywood]

corporation was only intended to be an accounting tool, not as a means to create a literal person in the constitutional rights sense.

Three guys get together and form a corporation to do janitorial work. While driving back from a job. The corporate truck is pulled over and ceased by the cops who then sell it to buy doughnuts without any due process.

If corporations do not have constitutional rights, this very scenario could happen. If sued, the cops could simply claim that since corporations do not have constitutional rights...the corporation does not have standing to bring the suit against them in the first place. The judge agrees because the supreme court tells him corporations don't have constitutional rights....and the case is dismissed.

Corporations are tools used by people and people do not loose their constitutional rights just because they get together and incorporate. In the above scenario the corporation could sue the cops because the court has actually ruled that for purposes of law the corporation has constitutional rights. They ruled this way because people who make up the corporation have constitutional rights.

By declaring corporations persons for the purpose of law...we preserve our constitutional rights. This is why the Citizens United decision was a good one.

[DeistPaladin]

Three guys get together and form a corporation to do janitorial work. While driving back from a job. The corporate truck is pulled over and ceased by the cops who then sell it to buy doughnuts without any due process.

Ignoring your use of Reducto Ad Absurdum...

Corporations do own property, as I explained. Corporations are also owned by persons who's stock value (which is also property, in this case owned by the individual owners) is damaged by the above unlikely scenario so they too would be able to show damage as individual people.

No critic of Citizens United has ever claimed corporations do not have property rights.

Corporations are tools used by people and people do not loose their constitutional rights just because they get together and incorporate.

No one is suggesting that individuals lose their constitutional rights. The question is whether or not corporations gain other rights, such as the right of free speech.

The point you miss, in your arrogant lazy ignorance, is that corporations are persons ONLY with regard to property issues and legal/financial liabilities. They can't vote by law (likely to be struck down next). They don't have religion. They aren't conscious individuals who can have opinions about political matters. Owners can and they can hold picket signs like everyone else.

[Mister Agenda]

The Citizens United ruling doesn't apply only to corporations. It applies to any organization. Unions, clubs, etc. The reasoning is that the people in an organization don't lose any of their rights because they're in the organization. What they can do separately, they can do together. Not allowing groups of people to pool their resources to achieve political ends is Constitutionally problematic.

I agree that money in politics is a problem, and seems to become more of a problem the more we do to 'fix' it as people get creative in getting around the new restrictions. The part of McCain-Feingold to try to stop Citizens United, a nonprofit political organization, from airing their anti-Hillary ad was struck down on Constitutional grounds because the government doesn't have a right to tell people they can't air a political ad within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary if they're organized as a corporation instead of just passing the hat. A corporation isn't really a person, but corporations are people in the sense that they are composed of people. Citizens United wasn't a corporate personhood case. The ruling was that people don't lose their free speech rights when they're in a corporation or union or other association.

In hindsight, the best way to have kept money in politics proportionate to what it was prior to 2002 would have been not to enact McCain Feingold in the first place. It's the poster child for the law of unintended consequences. Unfortunately, getting rid of it now is unlikely to have much impact now that all these new methods of getting money into the political system have been devised as a response to it.

[DeistPaladin]

In hindsight, the best way to have kept money in politics proportionate to what it was prior to 2002 would have been not to enact McCain Feingold in the first place. It's the poster child for the law of unintended consequences. Unfortunately, getting rid of it now is unlikely to have much impact now that all these new methods of getting money into the political system have been devised as a response to it.

I have a solution to the problem and it's really simple yet will transform American democracy to make it more robust, more responsive to the people and more focused on real issues and not talking points and sound bytes.

Ban
All
Paid
Political
Media
Ads.

No TV ads. No newspaper ads. No billboards. Campaign finances would be limited to be just enough to buy bumper stickers and yard signs to hand out to supporters. That's it.

You shouldn't be able to spend money to buy more speech than your fellow citizen. The Koch brothers can make picket signs and protest on the street corner like everyone else.

Madison Ave soundbites littering our TV time would be replaced by bi-weekly debates during the campaign season where substantive issues would be discussed.

These debates should also be done under oath. Knowingly lying to the people during a political debate should be punished with the charge of perjury.