Citizens United Against Free Speech

Ever since the Supreme Court ruling last year in the case of Citizen's United vs. the Federal Election Commission  all pretense of an independent representative government seems to have gone out the window. Certainly campaign financing prior to the ruling had not been perfect, but with the rolling back of more than a 100 years of campaign finance restrictions and reforms started under Teddy Roosevelt, and with the prospects of a billion dollar presidential campaign heating up, the money will be flowing big time and those that can will be buying influence that could impact our laws for the next generation.

The Citizens United ruling opened the flood gates of opaque political financing in which corporations and other non human entities, who have access to almost unlimited funding to spend on elections, could be viewed as US citizens with First Amendment rights to free speech. American and multinational corporations are not humans nor can the be considered American citizens, and they often do not have the best interest of America at heart; especially if it conflicts with the corporation's interests.

The idea of allowing those with the most money to buy the most influence in our system seems un-American if the concept of  no taxation without representation really means anything. Our system can not survive if all the power resides with those with the  most money; it is antithetical to the nature of  democracy and to the ability of government to affect changes that benefits the majority of American people.

Now while both political parties use the lax campaign rules to their advantage, it is the Republicans who benefited the most from the Citizens United ruling because they have often unfettered access to corporate largess. While Republican candidates get a large chunk of their financing from their friends in the corporate world, Democrats in contrast have many smaller individual donors and a few large unions to contribute to their election campaigns.

I'm a very angry eagle.

Citizens United a conservative non profit organization with the motto, "Dedicated to restoring our government to citizen control," seems to have taken the concept of double speak to new heights. Not only didn't the Supreme Court ruling increase citizen control of the government it in effect made the votes of ordinary citizens much less valuable.

After attempting to pass legislation in 2010, that would have taken some of the bite out the Citizens United ruling, only to have it fail by one vote following unanimous opposition by Senate Republicans,  the Democrats are now looking to the President for some meager relief.

A White House plan reported this week is in the works and would use a presidential executive order to force all corporations who want or already have federal contracts, to disclose their election spending. Although relatively small potatoes,  it is non-the-less being heavily criticized by the Republicans, the US Chamber of Commerce, and other corporate mouth pieces. 

Shine a light and the cockroaches scatter.

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