First, I have to agree with the antidistortion principle as accepted by SCOTUS in the Austin case, but which the Government and Court abandoned in this case. Corporations make money in the market, by actions that have little or no connection to the political ideas of that corporation. And because of the vast difference between corporate profits and individual income, allowing corporations to use general treasury funds to advocate on behalf of candidates would grossly distort political speech. The fact that individuals earnings also come from the marketplace and corporations, by means of salaries, interest etc., is irrelevant, as corporations and people are fundamentally different. Indeed, the same antidistortion principle supports individual donation limits to political candidates – political speech should not be over-available to those who have the most money.

Media organisations are exempted from this by two factors – one, their earnings are a direct result of their output, thus FOX News, for example, makes money as people watch the station directly because of the political views expressed therein. A socialist news organisation in the US would be unprofitable, reflecting the views of residents of the United States. Thus buying a newspaper or watching a particular news channel chould be considered as a form of unregulated donation to a particular political viewpoint. The second factor is the First Amendment press freedom clause, which must be supported. There is a question, however, over allowing media organisations to fund media operations through other profitable activities. Preventing such outside funding would not contravene the Press Freedom clause of the First Amendment.

Another thought, an important one. Speech with political intent by associations of individuals should not be restricted; including not least the Democratic and Republican Parties. Freedom of speech does not just mean freedom of speech for one individual, but also for associations of common purpose. But where that common purpose involves for-profit activities which may or may not accord with the public good, the motivation for such activities is unquestionably suspect. Free political speech may be distorted by this, and even the disclosure requirements upheld by the Court in this case do not diminish this distortion.

I understand the rationalisations made by the majority in coming to a decision in this case. But I can’t agree with them – which is not the same thing as saying I agree with the dissent (which I haven’t read yet). I feel that the judgement made in Austin should not have been overturned, and that restrictions on political speech by for-profit corporations (and indeed, non-profit organisations who are funded even only in minimis by for-profit corporations) does not contravene the First Amendment.

I do admit that this leaves an artificial separation between two kinds of for-profit corporations, namely the media on one hand, and every other company on the other. This seems to have been a factor in the Court deciding to overturn Austin. But that difference is already inherent in the First Amendment.

The one part of the dissent I read was Justice Thomas’ dissent from part IV, namely the disclosure requirements. He argues that due to threats and intimidation of donors to campaign groups on Proposition 8 in California (gay marriage), the disclosure requirements would in many cases chill speech by preventing donations for fear of reprisals. I can’t agree that this makes the law unconstitutional, but I do agree that the disclosure requirements should perhaps be not quite so open as to give the full names, addresses, employers details etc. published on the internet, as was the case in CA during Prop. 8.

So here’s my question. The Democrats are complaining that they can’t get it done with only 59 Senate seats because they need 60 to overcome a Republican filibuster. Why can’t they just say to the Republicans: bring it on? How long can a Republican filibuster last? Why don’t they just let the Republicans try it, and spend the entire time saying to the American people, “we want X, Y and Z: the GOP are using parliamentary process to stop us doing something good for you?”

You could also read that as “Why don’t the Democrats act like they have a pair?”. But although I do think that the democrats are currently acting like they don’t have a pair, that’s not what I mean. I actually don’t understand why the filibuster is such a big threat. By my understanding of a filibuster, you have to talk continuously without sitting down or yielding the floor. Is there something I don’t understand here? Does cloture actually require that you get 60 votes for cloture on any bill before it’s brought to the floor? Or am I missing something?

If anyone stopping by understands, could you please leave a comment to explain, because this one has me a bit stumped.

It had been ruled that this was a violation of part of the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which banned political advertisements paid for by the general treasuries of corporations advocating the support or defeat of a particular candidate, within 30 days of an election (although companies may establish separate Political Action Committees or PACs, which may be funded only through donations from stockholders and employees), and so it was prevented from running these ads without a message explaining who the ad was paid for, and where the money came from, just like political ads.

SCOTUS, in considering the case, ruled that part of the McCain-Feingold Act contravened the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.“, for those who don’t know the Constitution of the United States off by heart!), reversing several earlier judgements to make this ruling.

Basically, the court ruling has now allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money right up until election days paying for advertisements to support or oppose candidates for election. One caveat: they have to spend the money themselves; they are not allowed to co-ordinate with campaigns, as that would be considered a donation and is still covered by the law.

Perhaps the most dangerous effect of the ruling is that it is not limited to American companies, just ones operating in America. And there’s plenty of foreign companies in the US which are partly or wholly owned by foreign governments. There are oil companies in the US owned by Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. There’s plenty of companies owned by China.

In other words, the Supreme Court just gave Hugo Chavez and the Chinese Communist Party the authority to direct huge amounts of money to candidates in US elections.

Does that not seem dangerous to you?

In fairness, there is a point to be made about the media: FOX News is basically a permanent use of NewsCorporation’s general treasury to support Republican candidates, and MSNBC the same for the Democrats; Newspaper endorsements are often crucial to elections, and these are use of corporate funds to expressly advocate the election of a particular candidate. News organisations like this are of course covered by the press freedom clause of the First Amendment, but if other companies aren’t, surely this is treating media and other for-profit companies differently, when they are both for-profit companies? And since groups like Citizens United are non-profit advocacy groups, the pre-ruling law preferentially treated for-profit media corporations over independent, non-profit, voluntary activist groups. Something doesn’t seem right there.

But the idea that the oil industry can simply fund hundreds of millions of dollars worth of advertisements to attack candidates who don’t favour their preferred energy policy, or equivalent, turns my stomach. And you can switch “oil industry” for motor industry, steel industry, tobacco industry, medical insurance industry, or any industry you can think of. Scared yet?

Government of the people, by the people, for the corporations.

And I’m a right winger!

For more information:

Supreme Court rejects limits on corporate spending on political campaigns (Washington Post)

Will the Citizens United Ruling Let Hugo Chavez and King Abdullah Buy U.S. Elections? (Centre for Public Integrity)

Citizens United v. FEC in plain English (SCOTUS Blog)

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (SCOTUS Wiki)

The ruling (all 183 pages: pdf, hosted by SCOTUS Blog)

And Trevor Sargent has got integrity, plus I’m sure Enda Kenny would have explored all the options to make him Taoiseach.

I don’t see the fuss over Sinn Féin to be honest. I don’t see eye to eye with them particularly, but if we expect Ian Paisley’s DUP to go into government with them in the north, why should Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael be any different? Though I’ll say again that I don’t see eye to eye with them politically and I wouldn’t like to see them in Government for reasons other than history and so on.

Plus, I don’t really believe politicians who say they wouldn’t do a deal with a certain party. Dick Spring swore he wouldn’t go in to government with Fianna Fáil in the early 90s and look what happened. I’m sure Eamon Gilmore would do the same if there was a chance. Politicians want power, that’s the reason they’re in politics.

And that’s not a bad thing, if you’re in politics and you don’t want power, you should get out. Politics is about power, and you should want power, because you should want to make certain changes to the way this country is. If you don’t, I don’t see why you’d be in politics.

It’s weird getting opinion polled. You always read these things in the newspapers, and actually being a part of the “a random sample of 1,003 adults across the country” is a reminder that all the percentages actually come from people like me (well, people anyway) across the country being actually asked. Which is easy to forget sometimes.

Except this time, I didn’t see the results being published in the Irish Times (which usually carries the tns/MRBI polls). So I guess it must have been some political party’s internal poll – which probably means Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. I’m guessing Fianna Fáil, because I did see something in one of the papers about an internal FF poll which showed the party would come in third place in a general election.

That tallies with the last Irish Times – tns/MRBI and Sunday Business Post – Red C polls, putting Labour in the low- to mid-twenties. And it does seem pretty clear that if there was an election soon, Fianna Fáil would get cheesed (like getting creamed, but it goes on for longer: thank you Terry Pratchett!). Royally cheesed.

But that makes me ask: would Fine Gael and Labour really do much better in Government? Enda Kenny as Taoiseach?

I’m not sure they could. I mean let’s face it, a lot of our problems come from the fact that we’re in a global downturn. There’s less tax coming in. Banks everywhere are struggling. Fianna Fáil can’t do much about the global economy, and neither could Labour or Fine Gael. A new Rainbow government would still be faced with a huge deficit and 2002-level tax receipts, and would still be faced with the task of cutting €5 billion or so in Government spending, or making it up through tax increases. Whatever way you cut that level of money from the public purse, you are going to upset a lot of people. A lot.

I think that if there was an election tomorrow, Fine Gael and Labour would win in a landslide, I think the Greens would go from 6 to probably nine or ten, and Sinn Féin would pick up a couple too. Fianna Fáil would lose big. And then, I think that once they had decided on which spending cuts and tax increases to make, their poll numbers would drop like a stone. Curiously I think that would benefit the Greens, who are actually doing decent work in the two ministries they have – Communications, Energy, and Natural Resources and Environment, Heritage, and Local Government – particularly Eamon Ryan in DCENR, who is actually, despite the recession, well ahead of schedule to complete everything in the Programme for Government for the DCENR. And the Greens’ polling numbers are, despite the fact that they are part of this Government, 150% at least of their vote from the last general election. I think they are pulling off a great trick – taking credit for what they are doing themselves, whilst avoiding the blame for Fianna Fáil’s mistakes. It remains to be seen whether they can keep that up.

But my point is, if there is an election soon, voters will switch in droves from Fianna Fáil to Fine Gael and Labour. And if Fine Gael and Labour can’t pull off a miracle, their poll numbers will start to tank as well, very quickly…but where do those voters go? They won’t go back to Fianna Fáil…so they are left with really only two options: Sinn Féin and the Greens. And I don’t think a lot of them would go to Sinn Féin.

Anyway, this was meant to be a 2 line post, and I got a bit carried away, so I’ll leave it there for now. But I would be very interested to read any comments that any of you might have on that analysis.