Corporate Speech

Today, the Supreme Court announced that corporate campaign spending is protected by the First Amendment. That is, the Federal government and states may not restrict corporations' use of corporate money -- money that corporations got by charging customers more than they had to or paying employees, suppliers, and investors less than they could have -- to influence elections. Obviously, business corporations will be forced by the pressures of competition to use their funds to try to use politics as a new forum for competition. Producing a better product is far less likely to be profitable than winning legislative changes in the rules of the game that advantage companies that are already profitable and hinder potential threats to those profits, whether in the form of competing products or health, safety, anti-pollution or other efforts to support the common good.

The decision turns the First Amendment on its head. The First Amendment has two main purposes: first, to protect republican and democratic politics by ensuring that citizens are free to criticize the government, and second , to create a space free from government intervention where people can follow their own idiosyncratic whims regardless of the taste of others. This decision is a major set-back to both purposes.

Most importantly, if corporations -- which are not citizens and many of which are multi-national organizations with interests that may be radically opposed to those of ordinary Americans -- are allowed to freely intervene in our elections, then each citizen must have a corresponding decrease in influence. My contribution means less if I must compete with BP-Amoco and not just my fellow Americans' money.

Moreover, at least for the managers who will now view themselves as required by law and market competition to spend corporate money to influence elections, the Supreme Court's radical revision of the Constitution forces them to use the corporations they run to advocate policies they may well know are wrong for the country.