US Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Corporate Campaign Cash

01/21/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
In a five to four decision, the United States Supreme Court has sided with corporate interests and opened the floodgates for corporate cash to buy pretty much as many ads as they want in order to influence elections. The decision centers around a movie which was created by a Conservative corporation in order to attack Hilary Clinton. One side stated that they felt that the movie was campaign in nature and thus subject to campaign laws, and the other side claimed that those restrictions violated the corporation’s freedom of speech.

The decision overturns roughly sixty years of laws and precedents governing corporate influence on political campaigns, and it also creates a secondary problem in that it could end up overturning truth in advertising laws.

The wider issue is that this allows corporations, special interest groups, unions, and political action committees to pretty much spend as much as they can to influence an election. Of course, many of those political action committees were set up in order to bypass corporate restrictions on campaign spending already. For a company that wants to elect pro-business (that is low regulation and taxation) candidates, this is a boon. For Wall Street, this allows corporations to directly campaign without having to provide money through back channels. Of course, this could end up having a benefit in that many people may now see the corporations as being the ones behind the money that is influencing the campaign and chose to not support a given candidate. This is especially true given the very negative nature of the feelings people have towards Wall Street right now. In fact, the loss for Martha Coakley in Massachusetts was due in part to that anti-Wall Street feeling. Groups such as the National Organization for Marriage may find their money dry up in part because groups backing them no longer need to have a front, though they may keep it in hopes that their anonymity remains.

For small businesses and the average person, the decision creates a big problem allowing mega-corporations to influence elections without checks. Many of those corporations try to stack the deck against smaller businesses and want regulations removed.

For the average citizen, the biggest issue coming from this could end up being that the already negative, painful and hair ripped out political season will get worse. Campaign ads will wage a war of political mud across the airwaves, cable outlets, internet, and maybe newspapers.

Democrats have already vowed to put in place new campaign finance laws before the 2010 mid-term elections. The biggest problem may be getting politicians to act against the best interests of the corporations.

In the long run, the biggest winner of this may end up being the Media. With advertising revenue down, the Media may end up reaping the rewards of even more money flowing into advertising.