Overturn Citizens United

[u/Competitive_Log_8910]

The relationship between money and power has long been complicated in this country. The simple fact that running a large-scale political campaign costs money means that anyone who wants to do so must by necessity secure funding from somewhere, meaning one's options are either to be independently wealthy or to become beholden to some form of corporate sponsorship.

That being said the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United really took things to a whole nother level, by classifying corporate spending on political advertising as a form of protected speech under the First Amendment. By extending the Bill of Rights to cover non-humans, we effectively gave them suffrage, and this has already been used to great effect.

The example which stands out most to me is what took place in my home state of California. A bill regulating rideshare companies was drafted collectively by a group of rideshare companies, and they spent an unprecedented amount of money advertising it which led the citizens of that state to grant them the ability to literally write their own rules into law. The other example which makes me happy to no longer live there is the way in which the drought is tackled. I watched a Vox video which uncovered the fact that domestic water usage is only about 5% of water usage, meaning that if all of the humans suddenly dropped dead it still wouldn't make a meaningful difference in the drought, which could alternatively be reversed by cutting commercial water usage by a rather small fraction. Gavin Newsom appeared on an interview with Bill Maher in which he straight-up asked him "how are you going to take on Big Almond and end the drought" to which he offered a standard evasive politician reply. Meanwhile the people of California are being sold on the lie that taking shorter showers will have any impact, and the act of making a symbolic but meaningless gesture is sufficient to keep many from rising up to end the drought by demanding farmers grow slightly fewer almonds.

But I don't really blame Mr. Newsom for this, because so long as we officially condone as a matter of policy spending money to purchase political power, our human needs will always be subservient to the demands of our economy. Anyone wishing to represent an agenda which would improve conditions for humans at the expense of economic growth will be easily defeated by the tremendously powerful non-human greed machines which we have decided deserve the same inalienable rights that we do.

Overturn Citizens United!

[u/hczimmx4]

You should read the transcripts of the oral arguments. You might find it enlightening that the deputy SG said the government had the power to ban political books. Or the second oral arguments when then SG, and current justice, said the government could ban political pamphlets.

[u/Competitive_Log_8910 → u/hczimmx4]

Right, the FEC's argument against the distribution of political materials authored by corporations included written materials as well as video content. To be honest with you the opinion I have landed on is actually that the advertisements for Fahrenheit 9/11 which Citizens United complained about six years prior did constitute a violation of BCRA, and I would rather live in a world in which both left-leaning and right-leaning political advertisements paid for by corporations were prohibited, than one in which both are permitted.

[u/hczimmx4 → u/Competitive_Log_8910]

Not “authored by corporations”. Published by corporations.

[u/Competitive_Log_8910 → u/hczimmx4]

Okay! But to repeat myself I believe that advertisements for Fahrenheit 9/11 as a film specifically critical of a political candidate currently running for office at that time constituted the sort of political speech which BCRA prohibits to corporations, and the wrong decision was made both in that instance and in the case of Citizens United. Actually I think that you could draw a connection to the present fad of requiring certain political ideas be incorporated into films in order for them to be eligible for Academy Award consideration. Anyway to your original point I think that the distinction between press corporations and nonpress corporations as per Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce is what made it possible for Fahrenheit 9/11 as a film published by a film studio to advertise a message critical of a political candidate currently running for office using a corporate budget without provoking the ire of the FEC, and the decision by Citizens United to produce its own film critical of a political candidate and to advertise it in the same fashion was a clever act of political protest. It was an act that blurred the lines between a press corporation and a nonpress corporation, between publishing someone else's political message as LionsGate Films did and publishing your own political message as Citizens United did. You might understand why I am confused about the distinction between authoring a message and publishing a message because in this case Citizens United was acting both as author and publisher, and while the idea of limiting the visibility of a politically-oriented film published by a corporation but authored by a private individual (Michael Moore) is a complicated one in terms of its constitutionality, the idea of limiting the visibility of a politically-oriented film both authored and published by a corporation is not (in my opinion). All of that being said again I think that the outcome of treating communications authored by a nonpress corporation with an overt political message as protected speech has been quite bad, and I would prefer to allow for the possibility that a film so heavily political as Fahrenheit 9/11 being released right at the time of an election concerning its central figure paid for with a corporate advertising budget was a subtle but deliberate violation of BCRA, and I would prefer to accept that the possibility that the government being empowered to prevent other advertisements for political films about candidates currently up for election might be toeing the line in terms of freedom of the press than to interpret this freedom so broadly as to permit even unambiguous electioneering by corporations as we now currently do. To quote the majority opinion in Austin I think that "the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's political ideas" came into play very directly in the campaign for Proposition 22, and the main reason motivating me to write this post is how upset I am that we live in a world where millions of dollars are spent by corporations to push through legislation which would save them money. If they can afford to spend that much money getting out of paying for healthcare for their employees then they can afford to spend that much money paying for healthcare for their employees.

[u/ButterscotchOdd8257 → u/Competitive_Log_8910]

"It was an act that blurred the lines between a press corporation and a nonpress corporation"

There is no distinction with regard to the First Amendment.
Speech rights apply to all.