The Gristle
Best democracy money can buy
BEST DEMOCRACY MONEY CAN BUY: Overborne and crushed in the spin cycle of news that the United States Supreme Court upheld the Obama Administration’s signature heath care reform law, a lesser noticed ruling may hold even more profound consequences for our democracy and citizen control of their elected representatives.
The U.S. Supreme Court—without much comment—summarily reversed a decision by the Supreme Court of Montana that found the state held an interest in controlling money in state and local elections. The SCOTUS ruling emboldened their earlier position in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that found corporations can contribute unlimited amounts of funds toward what are deemed “independent expenditures” in federal elections. The Montana decision takes it further, extending the reasoning to state elections and nullifying campaign finance controls at the local level.
More than a century ago, corrupt mining interests so polluted elections in Montana that citizens there enacted Montana’s Corrupt Practices Act in 1912. A century of transparent campaign-finance restrictions followed, preventing corporate money from unduly influencing elections.
Roll forward 60 years, and in 1972 voters in Washington expressed similar concerns about honesty and transparency in their elections. Voters enacted Initiative 276, which required that most state and local records are available to the public—including how and when money is received and spent in elections. The state’s public disclosure laws are among the best in the nation. Expansion of those principles led to the state placing modest controls on late or anonymous contributions, and the amount of contributions—controls the Montana decision places in severe jeopardy.
In their decision, five SCOTUS justices doubled down on Citizens United, a conflation of two rather startling conclusions: First, that money is speech. Second, that corporations are citizens protected under the Constitution. Ergo, the rights of corporations to funnel money into campaigns cannot be abridged.
Corporations, or the shadowy “Super PACS” that they choose to fund, can spend as much as they care to on campaign ads, just as long as they don’t coordinate with a candidate’s campaign committee. That 2010 ruling has profoundly altered the electoral landscape—not only for the presidential election, but also for thousands of races around the country.
Twenty-four states currently prohibit or restrict corporate and/or union spending on candidate elections. In a brief supporting Montana’s laws, Washington attorneys joined others in cautioning, “States—particularly resource-rich states with small populations, like Montana—face the risk that nonresident corporations with discrete and well-defined interests will dominate campaign spending in state and local election contests.”
Listen closely and you can hear the rumble of coal trains, the throb of well-funded international shipping interests.
Justices arrogantly swept aside the concern.
“Independent expenditures,” they wrote, “including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,” knocking down a central pillar of the Montana law and those of other states seeking transparency and accountability in campaign finance.
Four other justices, in a terse dissent that drips of despair, noted that even granting the reasoning of Citizens United is sound, the court’s “legal conclusion should not bar the Montana Supreme Court’s finding, made on the record before it, that independent expenditures by corporations did in fact lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption in Montana. Given the history and political landscape in Montana, that court concluded that the state had a compelling interest in limiting independent expenditures by corporations,” they wrote.
“Montana’s experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the court’s decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the court’s supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so,” dissenting justices wrote.
The corrosive effects of Citizens United can already be felt, as Super PACs plow money to the “business friendly” party at roughly three times the rate they do to the less “business friendly” party, profoundly changing the emphasis of both as they chase those election dollars. In Whatcom’s 42nd Legislative Districts, Republican incumbents are vacuuming in corporate dollars at twice the clip as their Democratic challengers, and this doesn’t even include the independent expenditures that are made on their behalf.
Commenting on the decision, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer observed, “Corporations aren’t people, and they should not control our government. Montana stood up for democracy, here at home and on behalf of America, by fighting to keep our ban on corporate campaign spending. The United States Supreme Court blocked our state law, because they said corporations are people. I’ll believe that when Texas executes one.”
His concern is a growing one, with nearly eight Americans in ten expressing apprehension or misgivings about Citizens United.
Hundreds of municipalities across the country—including Bellingham—have called for a constitutional amendment that would distinguish the biological from entities created by charter. It’s an important tool in the city’s multifaceted fight for social justice and regulatory parity on the issue of coal.
John Bonifaz, co-founder and director of Free Speech for People, one of a coalition of groups organizing for the amendment, noted, “We’ve seen a growing mobilization across the country of people calling for an amendment to reclaim our democracy. Four states are now on record—Hawaii, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Mexico— calling for an amendment. Other states are likely to join that fight soon.”
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will hear arguments supporting the amendment later this month.
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