In Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court late last month ruled that corporations are permitted to spend unlimited amounts of money on independent political advertising in U.S. elections. While conservatives and libertarians are cheering the ruling as a victory for free speech, many progressives are warning of a coming flood of corporate money buying elections, and pushing for a legislative response.
The Court’s ruling is simple: Laws that prohibit corporations from buying political advertising, simply because they are corporations, violate the First Amendment. Hence, the63-year-old law prohibiting corporations from making “independent expenditures” expressly advocating the election or defeat of a federal candidate, as well as the prohibition of corporate “electioneering communications,” enacted by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, were struck down.
Corporations are now permitted to spend as much as they want to say whatever they want about candidates, at any time and in any medium, provided they do not coordinate their efforts with a candidate. The Court’s holding applies with equal force to the mirror-image laws that had limited the electoral spending of labor unions.
Because the Supreme Court has the final word on whether a law violates the Constitution, Congress cannot simply undo Citizens United. Only a future Supreme Court, or a new constitutional amendment, can take political speech rights back from corporations. It is difficult to predict how much of an effect Citizens United