Coming back to Citizens United
It’s important to note that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United didn’t go as far in overturning a hundred-year-old essential aspect of electoral democracy as it potentially could have. However, the reach, purpose, and timing of the decision is shamelessly transparent and will undoubtedly affect the already skewed balance of American elections, likely to the extent proposed by so much of the liberal and centrist media commentary currently surging on the web and in print.
There’s no online shortage of petitions to “tell ___ to give us back our ___.” But, many writers and advocates have been focusing on how best to craft a response to the Court’s decision that is both timely and effective. Everyone seems focused on two options, neither mutually exclusive: Passing the Fair Elections Now Act and/or a Constitutional Amendment having something to do with special interest money in elections. The FENA option could potentially be a swift response, the Amendment a far more drawn out process. FENA had 124 cosponsors in the House before Citizens United came down, and it’s possible we’ll see a quick upswing in supporting representatives in the coming weeks. It’s going to be tough to convince the nation that spending $800 million – $1 billion on a program that’s never before been tried for US Congress is a bright idea, especially given the call for a halt in spending much of the media is predicting in Obama’s SOTU speech tonight, but if done right (and it certainly could be done wrong) it’s a small, small price to pay for a democratic system in which candidates are forced to appeal to voters instead of large donors.
Lawrence Lessig, superstar Standford Law professor who has just moved to Harvard Law and is head of Change Congress, posted a video in reaction to Citizens United, stating, “This is an extraordinarily important moment, and we need to organize to push as strongly as we can to get an alternative to the current system for funding elections that at least makes it possible for people to trust government again.”
The best part of the video comes at the end, when Lessig states:
“Not the alternative that tries to silence any speaker, but the alternative that allows us to believe once again that our government is guided by reason or judgment or even just the politics of the people in a district, and not by the need to raise money.”
That’s an incredibly good point. The Fair Elections Now Act public financing option, if properly set up, funded, and administered, circumvents this issue of the First Amendment and the silencing of speech. It’s a voluntary program for candidates, but one that voters can demand (and pay the price for) because the ability to trust is worth it. In a system where it is expected that serious candidates will and can run tight and competitive campaigns, forsaking public financing for the money from special interest corporations will seem like a direct insult to and attack on voters. Which it is.
(Side note: This wouldn’t sidestep the issue of “rescue funds” that have recently come up in suits in Wisconsin, as I highlighted a few weeks ago in this post, 3rd and 4th paragraphs. But that’s another issue.)
In the coming days I’ll take a look at Lessig’s larger essay following that video (in which he advocates for the Constitutional Amendment as well as FENA), what Citizens United means for transparency, and how states are gearing up to counter the effects of the decision. A preview from Maryland, with the AP reporting on the proposals of MD lawmakers: “One Maryland proposal would require two-thirds of shareholders to approve of campaign spending before corporations can use shareholder money for campaign issues. Other bills include measures to require any kind of corporate campaign advertisement to publicly disclose the corporation that is paying for the ad and prohibit corporate campaign expenditures from being tax deductible.”