NJ Law Journal: Corporate Money, Political Speech - Citizens United v. F.E.C.

"The idea is to prevent . . . the great railroad companies, the great insurance companies, the great telephone companies, the great aggregations of wealth from using their corporate funds, directly or indirectly, to send members of the legislature to these halls in order to vote for their protection and the advancement of their interests as against those of the public. It strikes at a constantly growing evil which has done more to shake the confidence of the plain people of small means of this country in our political institutions than any other practice which has ever obtained since the foundation of our Government."

Elihu Root (above left) , at the New York State Constitutional Convention, 1894

cited by Justice Frankfurter (below left) in United States v. United Automobile Workers, 352 U.S. 567 (1957)

The Editorial Board of the New Jersey Law Journal has sharply rebuked the United States Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which declared that corporations have the same right to spend money on electioneering as do natural persons.  The Board embraces the observation of senior Justice John Paul Stevens  who spoke from the Supreme Court bench in dissent:

"The Court's opinion is a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporation electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money and politics."

Stevens was joined by Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor.  


Explaining its own view the Law Journal Editorial Board wrote:

The U.S. Supreme Court recently overruled two recent precedents to invalidate federal-election-law preclusion of direct corporate expenditures in support or in opposition of candidates, essentially because the 5-4 majority in Citizens United v. FEC , refused to draw the long-established distinction between individuals and corporations.

Contrary to the fundamental purpose of the First Amendment, this sweeping decision will likely undermine democracy, not bolster it.

The Court ignored the obvious differences between individuals and corporations that affect their participation in elections. Corporations cannot vote or "speak" and possess no conscience, feelings, thoughts, beliefs or desires. They have perpetual life, enjoy separation of ownership and control, are given favorable treatment for the accumulation and distribution of assets, may be foreign-controlled and can acquire greater wealth than individuals.

Corporations are single-track vehicles to profit from the sale of goods and services. They finance Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals and even all of the above, so long as their profits are enhanced. Individuals may be persuaded to support political candidates for the good of the country; corporations are unlikely to be so persuaded.

The Court's ruling overrides laws that have been on the books for more than 100 years, as well as decades of campaign finance jurisprudence, which have recognized that society's interest in avoiding corruption and the appearance of corruption justifies regulating corporate expenditures in support or opposition of candidates.

The balance of the editorial may be found HERE.

The Board observes, as did President Obama in the State of the Union address, that the court has uprooted 100 years of efforts to regulate corporations political activity.  So intense was the sentiment a century ago that President Theodore Roosevelt declared in his December 1905 message to Congress, a year after his election 

"All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law."  

105 years later the United States Supreme Court has declared government may not do what Roosevelt sought.  Corporations, the Court decided, just like natural persons, are free to speak whenever they want by spending money to support or oppose a candidate for office. - GWC