On January 21^st the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 to lift a decades-old ban on political spending by corporations.  This decision, Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, will radically alter campaign spending as we know it.

Previously, corporations and labor unions were banned from spending money out of their general treasury 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election.   They are still prohibited from giving directly to candidates running for office – and must continue to donate directly through their Political Action Commission (PAC).

But with this ruling, corporations can now spend an unlimited amount of money on their own independent expenditures for or against candidates running for office – right up through election day.  And since Kentucky is one of 24 states that have specific laws barring corporations from spending money on electioneering, this ruling will make our own state laws virtually null and void.

So, what does this mean for elections?  There is already a lot of money sloshing around in politics even before this ruling, you might say? 

Well, let’s play this out with an example. 

Consider Exxon-Mobil. In 2008, its PAC raised about $1 million from its employees and offices. Its profits that year – which it was legally barred from pouring into politics – were $45 billion. It was illegal for Exxon to spend that money on elections. Now with this decision, it will be legal.

The Citizens United ruling rolls back more than a 100 years of campaign finance law.  The ban on direct corporate spending in elections goes back to the 1907 Tillman Act, which prohibited corporate contributions in federal campaigns (it was assumed to cover independent expenditures, too). In 1947, the Taft-Hartley law made explicit that corporations and unions could not directly spend their treasury funds on electioneering. Congress, every time it has passed a law to deal with this, only has strengthened this prohibition.

Corporations will still have to disclose any money they spend on ads they run directly.  However, disclosure laws might not be triggered if they funnel their contributions through a third-party group – which could add a huge cloud of secrecy because the public may never be able to find out who and how much is being spent by some of these corporations.

However, there is a silver lining in all this.  With this huge rollback of crucial limits on corporations undue influence on elections this may just be the push that many lawmakers and the public need to enact real campaign finance reform. 

KFTC has long supported campaign spending limits and public financing of elections to reduce the amount spent on elections and the power of big money contributors.

What do you think about the Citizens United ruling?  About letting corporations have as much “political speech” as they can afford to spend? 

To learn more: 

• Move To Amend,
  
• Public Campaign
• Common Cause