This is pretty bad news as far as I’m concerned. It’s boring but important.
Should a corporation be able to fund campaign ads?
In 1990 the court decided that the government could “stop corporations from spending money on ads that urge the election or defeat of a candidate.” That court insisted that there would be a limit to the amount of money a corporation could spend to promote a candidate. This prevents a scenario where a company could potentially pour billions of dollars into political ads and distribute them as the corporation saw fit.
But in 2008 Citizens United (CU), a political group was “barred from airing a negative movie about Hillary Clinton. CU received corporate donations and the movie advocated the defeat of a political candidate within 60 days of an election. CU argued that the ruling violated its freedom of speech, and that the relevant provision of McCain-Feingold was unconstitutional.”
This recent case made it’s way all the way up to the Supreme Court where the justices weighed it against precedent and the constitution and found that because a corporation is a person in the eyes of the law, to restrict that company’s ability to endorse a candidate for president or for national public office would be a violation of free speech.
Personally I believe that government representatives are elected to carry out the will of the citizens—the human beings—who elected that person. This five to four decision by the Supreme Court ignores this foundational idea that our republic is built upon.
