Big money and democracy

Big money and democracy:
a fair contest?

More on the political scene in Washington, 2010

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New poll shows broad support for "fixing" Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United

Americans want limits on corporate cash in elections, would support a constitutional amendment

[2-18-10]

News release from People For the American Way – 2/18/2010

A national poll of 1,200 Americans commissioned by People For the American Way shows that the Roberts Court is far out of step with the American public over corporate money in elections. It also shows broad support for a wide range of proposals to "fix" the Citizens United ruling, including legislation being introduced in Congress and a proposed constitutional amendment.

“Americans of all political stripes believe that corporations have too much influence in elections,” said Michael B. Keegan, President of People For the American Way. “Unlike the Roberts Court, the American people believe that Congress should be able to place limits on how much companies like ExxonMobil can spend to support or defeat candidates for public office. That’s not a liberal or Democratic position – it’s the American position.”

“In the days and weeks following the Citizens United ruling, many Republican leaders rejoiced at the prospect of more corporate money in elections,” said Keegan. “But our poll shows broad disagreement with the ruling and support for reform among Republicans and conservatives. This should be a wake-up call to Republican leadership. They have fallen out of touch with their base on this issue and should work with Democrats to restore reasonable limits.”

The results of the poll include the following:

	78% believe that corporations should be limited in how much they can spend to influence elections, and 70% believe they already have too much influence over elections
	73% believe Congress should be able to impose such limits, and 61% believe Congress has done too little in the past to limit corporate influence over elections
	Of the over 60% of Americans who have an opinion on a constitutional amendment to fix Citizens United, supports runs greater than 2 to 1
	82% support limits on electioneering by government contractors, and 87% support limits on bailout recipients
	85% support a complete ban on electioneering by foreign corporations
	75% believe that a publicly traded company should get shareholder approval before spending money in an election
	69% think that the President, in the event of a Supreme Court vacancy, should nominate a Justice who supports limits on corporate spending in elections

“Democrats in Congress should take heed of public opinion and implement meaningful reforms well before the fall election,” said Keegan. “But it will take more than a legislative patch to fully mend the damage done by the Roberts Court. That is why People For the American Way has launched an ongoing campaign to amend the constitution. As our poll demonstrates – the more that Americans learn about an amendment to undo Citizens United, the more they support it.”

The full results of the poll, which was conducted by SurveyUSA, are available here >>

PC(USA) stated clerk issues statement on Supreme Court’s election finance decision

Parsons: Unlimited spending by corporations ‘challenges democratic ethos’

by Jerry L. Van Marter, Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE — Feb. 3, 2010 -- The Rev. Gradye Parsons, General Assembly stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), issued a statement today decrying the Jan. 21 U.S. Supreme Court decision to lift virtually all restrictions on corporate contributions to election campaigns.

“I am concerned about the pressures this decision puts on individual candidates and office holders and on the integrity of the election system as a whole,” Parsons said, noting that the decision undoes decades of federal campaign finance legislation and “historic Presbyterian wisdom about the dangers of corruption by special interests.”

Parsons’ statement outlined recent General Assembly statements on campaign finance and electoral form, concluding that “this decision is likely to reshape the political process in profound ways, and to reduce the voice of citizens, churches and other groups without unlimited money ...”

The full text of Parsons’ statement, dated Feb. 3:

Statement by Stated Clerk on Unlimited Corporate Financing of Elections

The January 21, 2010, decision of the Supreme Court to reject 35 years of legislation to limit campaign spending by corporations challenges the democratic ethos of the United States and threatens to magnify the already-powerful role of special interests in US politics. In light of historic Presbyterian wisdom about the dangers of corruption by special interests, I am concerned about the pressures this decision puts on individual candidates and office holders and on the integrity of the election system as a whole.

Without addressing the legal status of corporations, now determined to be legal persons with “free speech,” able to use unlimited corporate (or union) funds for political purposes, this decision shows an innocence about human power and sin that Reformed Christians must question. Because this decision is likely to reshape the political process in profound ways, and to reduce the voice of citizens, churches and other groups without unlimited money, it is important to re-state the position of many General Assemblies.

In 2000, recognizing the already sky-rocketing costs of campaigns in the United States, the General Assembly Resolution on Campaign Finance Reform “Direct(ed) the Office of the General Assembly and the Washington Office to communicate the General Assembly’s strong support for ... campaign finance reforms, in order to increase public participation in elections and fairness in allocating the benefits and burdens of society” (Minutes, 2000, Part 1, pp. 424).

In 2008, in the resolution Lift Every Voice: Democracy, Voting Rights, and Electoral Reform, the Assembly recommended a set of measures for greater accountability and responsibility, including: “legislation and appropriate support for judicial cases that distinguish between campaign contributions and “free speech,” allowing meaningful regulation of special interest groups and individuals who are ... expected to spend approximately $400 million of the $1.5 billion 2008 election cycle.”

Well before Presbyterian minister John Witherspoon signed the Declaration of Independence, Presbyterians stood for the reform of both church and society in the direction of greater equal rights and democratic-representative processes. We have insisted on laws that protect individual rights and insure equitable communal decision-making. Elections for us are, in a sense, civic sacraments, as they carry a great moral responsibility to point to the common good. Unelected powers are unaccountable powers, unless governed by fair laws.

The Reformed theologian Reinhold Niebuhr expressed our mixture of realism and hope for making our political processes as participatory, just, and accountable as possible in his famous aphorism: “man’s (human) capacity for justice makes democracy possible but man’s (human) capacity for injustice makes democracy necessary.” The Supreme Court’s decision promises to expand the capacity for the injustice of unlimited political influence, and to compromise the capacity of citizens and legislatures to fulfill the promise of self-government.

Along with the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, I call upon Presbyterians to express to their own legislators concern over this egregious decision and ask our Washington Office to share this statement with legislators, the members of the Supreme Court, and the President of the United States.

The Rev. Gradye Parsons
Stated Clerk of the General Assembly
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

To see this report on the PCUSA website >>

The Citizens United Decision and How to Fix It
[2-3-10]

People for the American Way is urging people to call on congressional leaders “to support and pass a constitutional amendment granting Congress the authority to limit corporate influence in elections without delay.” But they suggest other ways, too, in which some limits might be placed against the unfettered use of corporate wealth to control U.S. policies and laws.

There are three ways to repair or mitigate the impact of the Court's ruling: change the law, change the Court, and change the Constitution.

Statutory fixes can't completely repair the damage caused by this decision, but they're important steps that can make a difference. Strengthening disclosure laws, limiting the power of federal contractors and foreign corporations, requiring shareholder approval of political expenditures and enacting a public financing system are all steps in the right direction.

Changing the Court is another imperative. In the coming years, Justices will leave the Court and the President will nominate replacements. It's absolutely crucial that, whoever the president, Americans demand he or she nominate Justices who put the rights of individual Americans above the rights of corporations.

Perhaps most importantly, the only complete solution is to enact a Constitutional Amendment restoring Congress's ability to limit corporate influence on elections.

For more information on the need for a constitutional amendment >>

To communicate your concerns to Congress >>

The End of Restraint: Alito, Roberts, and judicial modesty
[1-29-10]

Stuart Taylor Jr., writing in the Feb. 1, 2010, issue of Newsweek, calls the court’s 5 to 4 decision in thee case of Citizens United v. FEC a “blockbuster, precedent-smashing Jan. 21 decision unleashing corporate executives to pour unlimited amounts of stockholders' money—without their consent—into ads supporting or attacking federal candidates. Indeed the 5–4 decision would allow any big company to spend a fortune attacking candidates whom many, or even most, of its stockholders would rather support.”

He then condemns the decision as “a perverse interpretation of the First Amendment, one that will at best increase the already unhealthy political power of big businesses (and big unions, too), and at worst swamp our elections under a new deluge of special-interest cash. More ominously still, Citizens United v. FEC lends credence to liberal claims that all five of the more conservative justices are ‘judicial activists,’ the same imprecation that conservatives have for so long—and often justifiably—hurled at liberal justices.”

The full article >>

High-Court Hypocrisy: Dick Durbin's got a good idea.
[1-29-10]

Jonathan Alter also writes in the Feb. 1, 2010, issue of Newsweek, says that the court’s action sets “a new standard for judicial hypocrisy – [as it] struck down the laws of 22 states and the federal government” – and this from the court’s conservatives who have regularly condemned their more liberal bench-mates for “judicial activism.”

Alter sees the decision as leaving little room for change, unless Congress follows the lead of Sen. Dick Durbin and enacts a campaign-reform bill that would establish “a public-financing system that rewards candidates who attract small donors.” That might be coupled with legislation like that in Britain, which forbids corporations to get approval from their shareholders for any political contributions. The full article >>

The U. S. as “officially a plutocracy”
[1-29-10]

Blogger John Shuck has given space for an interesting discussion of the Supreme Court’s action, which he declared makes the U. S. “officially a plutocracy.” The Rev. Bob Campbell, who contributed good comments to this website before here, has been involved in the conversation on the “Shuck and Jive” blog as well.

The birth of the corporate “person”
[1-25-10]

We’ve heard a lot about tea parties lately – rallies encouraged by Sarah Palin among others to protest against what they view as higher taxes imposed or threatened by the big bad government in Washington.

Thom Hartmann offered a very different view of the original “Boston Tea Party” of 1773, not as a protest against government taxation, but quite the opposite: a protest against corporate power – specifically “against the actions of the multinational East India Company.”

Hartmann moves from that original tea party to examine the development of the idea enshrined in the recent Supreme Court decision, that corporations must be treated, and their “rights” respected, as if they were persons. If we are going to be struggling with this strange twist in U.S. law, this article may provide you with helpful background.

Read his essay, published in 2002 in Yes Magazine

Corporate campaign funding?

Pres. Andrew Jackson fought against just such corporate power – and so must we. [1-25-10]

This note has come to us from the Rev. Robert R. von Oeyen, Jr., pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church, Staunton, VA

Jon Meacham's Pulitzer prize-winning book American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (Random House, 2008) reveals Jackson's faults and failures as well as his remaking the office of President of the United States into the office of the representative of the people, which it has remained ever since.

What Jackson saw as the biggest danger to democracy was the very plutocracy about which Gene TeSelle and Mark Green write. And at the heart of it was the (second) Bank of the United States, a private bank holding a charter from the government, but in reality responsible to no one. That is still the absolute requirement of the large financial institutions of today, which have the hubris to think they know better than the people, and certainly better than government attempts at regulation (even when they have demonstrably blown it).

To give to these institutions the status of a citizen, a person who thinks, considers, acts as a citizen with all the rights of free speech, the right of being able to support or not candidates for office with enormous amounts of money .... and on and on – and that on the heels of their near catastrophic destruction of the nation by bringing on economic ruin for all because of the misuse of the great power they have already had before this decision ..... Jackson would roll over in his grave, or, as we believe he is not there, is being restrained by the Almighty from hurling thunder bolts from on high at those very five Justices that ruled in favor of this terrible decision.

After Jackson's opening remarks at a Cabinet Meeting September 18, 1833 about the end of the divine right of kings, and the prerogative authority of rulers having fallen before the "intelligence of the age" (what would he say of the intelligence of our age?), he goes on to speak about the real tyranny that the people face:

The mass of the people have more to fear from combinations of the wealthy and professional classes – from an aristocracy which through the influence of riches and talents, insidiously employed, sometimes succeeds in preventing political institutions, however well adjusted, from securing the freedom of the citizen.

"Sometimes" – Jackson was being polite. In his view "Money" always wins unless there is the utmost resistance from the "Tribune of the People" and the people themselves and their true representatives. All must stand against it and give no quarter. (Meacham p.267)

This translates to our time better than most "lessons from history." Jackson destroyed the Bank. Much later there has been the development of the Federal Reserve System with its checks and balances which are supposed to be under the control of "the people" (but which we have seen can be gotten around with enough effort by the "insidiously employed" talents of big finance). That is bad enough. But now there is no protection from the full rout of democratic institutions by big "Money."

Jesus taught that money can be the downfall of a person in any class of society – but He especially warned the rich: He warned of what their end would be without repentance, and He warned the poor and the unwary against the rich, against Money.

We will not see the end of this tragic development in our lifetimes.... Our system is broken – the Supreme Court, and the Congress – specifically the Senate where somehow a “supermajority” is now needed to accomplish any of the people's business at all! What can a President do? Our President says to fight on. Brave words. But we must. As Christian citizens we must.

Robert R. von Oeyen, Jr
Pastor, Bethany Presbyterian Church
Staunton VA

Corporate Campaign Rights
[1-25-10]

Bill Peach, of Franklin, Tennessee, has been in the men’s clothing business for most of his working life. But he also describes himself as a politician, preacher, and philosopher, who received his Bachelor’s degree at the age of 51. He has authored a number of books, including Politics, Preaching & Philosophy, published in 2009 by Westview, Inc.

Responding to the Supreme Court decision he writes:

I think there is a false equation of campaign contribution money and freedom of speech. Consistent with current campaign interpretation we should differentiate between issue advertising and direct contributions or specific reference to candidate or party. ...

While I realize the controversy relates to potential monetary amounts, I still do not think direct contributions from any institution has the same First Amendment protection as individuals. If corporations are allowed to fund this kind of campaign message, including support for or opposition to specific candidates or political parties, we have diminished the political integrity of the individual. The advantage this decision gives to bigness (corporations and other special interest groups) could have a long-term impact on elected offices and appointed court justices.

Read the rest on his blog >>

ReclaimDemocracy.org is one group dedicated to reversing the effects of the Supreme Court action [1-25-10]

The group declares its purpose as “restoring democratic authority over corporations, reviving grassroots democracy, and establishing appropriate limits to the realm of corporate influence. We strive to work proactively for systemic change, rather than react to the agendas of corporate and moneyed interests.”

Their website will provide you with bulletins on various planned responses to the Supreme Court decision, background information, and more.

Big Money Talks – and the Supreme Court says its freedom of speech must be protected [1-22-10]

by Gene TeSelle, former Issues Analyst of the Witherspoon Society

We had suspected it for a long time, but now, thanks to a swing vote by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, the United States is officially a plutocracy. On the dubious and probably perverse principles that corporations are legal persons and that political contributions are "speech" protected by the First Amendment, restrictions on corporate contributions to issue organizations (though not to specific political campaigns) have basically been thrown out. The rest of his essay >>

We welcome your opinions, analyses,
and pointers to other good sources.

Please send us a note,
to be shared here.