An Examination of the Impacts of Citizens United v. FEC on Democracy

• In Event: Research in Five (Undergraduate Students)

Abstract

This paper investigates the impacts of the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on democracy from a Constitutional law perspective. This paper analyzes how the concept of free speech in relation to campaign finance has evolved since the landmark decision. In a 5-4 decision, the majority determined that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts regarding candidate elections may not be limited under the First Amendment, further expanding the rights of corporations and treating them as people under the law. Since there are five written opinions of the court, this shows that the justices are extremely divided on the issue. In the past two decades, campaign finance regulations faced heavy scrutiny, especially since the Supreme Court established that money spent on electioneering communications is a form of free speech overturning years of legal precedent and posing a threat to democracy. By allowing major corporations to indirectly contribute limitless amounts of money to elect or defeat candidates, corporations have the ability to overshadow the political speech of the people, providing a degree of control over the election process that did not previously exist for corporations to shape democracy rather than the public. Since the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC in 2010, corporations and labor unions have spent almost $2 billion in federal elections, which is more than double what was spent in the period between 1998 and 2008. Equating money to a form of free speech can have dangerous consequences for governmental and democratic credibility, especially since a number of large campaign donations lack transparency because they are trafficked through dark money groups, who are not legally required to disclose information about their donors, thus hiding donor identities from the public. Super PACs present another major threat to democracy since they are permitted to raise unlimited sums of money from corporations and labor unions to spend on advertisements advocating for or against candidates. Because of the 2010 decision, corporations can donate unlimited amounts of money to legally attack candidates through media, which a candidate’s campaign is not allowed to do. While some advocates believe that corporate electioneering through Super PACs should not be regulated because it would violate a form a free speech, protecting election integrity is also at the heart of the First Amendment, especially since there was no concept of corporate rights under the constitution at the time of its conception. Because of this decision, the publicity of the speech stemming from corporations will have much more reach and influence over the public than the speech of average Americans simply because of differences in access to capital. Limitless corporate spending on federal campaigns damages election integrity because it introduces a stronger bias where public officials are more likely to act in ways that favor corporations rather than the American public at large. In order to compare various arguments on campaign finance regulation, this paper considers the concept of political equality, how it applies to corporations, and how it has been historically understood in the context of other court cases regarding the topic. By exploring concepts at the core of our democracy such as corruption, equality, and free speech grounded in constitutional theory, this paper seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of how the role of corporate expenditures in election campaigns has changed because of Citizens United v. FEC and the importance of corporate finance restrictions.

Author

• Brittany Pierce