Monday was the 1st anniversary of the landmark Citizens United case that created the Super PAC. No longer the owner of his Super PAC, Steven Colbert sat down with, "The Dissenter" retired Supreme John Paul Stevens to "celebrate" the happy birthday for election's big money interests.
Jessica Levinson of the Huffinton Post sent her thoughs this way to the Birthday...Boy, No Girl....No Corporation.
Birthday note from the Huffington Post
3 comments:
Free markets only work if every individual or group of individuals starts off on a level playing field. Government intervention can violate this system.
When corporations donate money to PACs to use to support politicians, they do so in order to woo legislators to their side. They use this influence to basically write the law of the land. These laws (also known as regulations) favor corporations by being filled with loopholes and subsidies. This makes the playing field - the market - unequal and unfree.
The decision in Citizens United is most ardently supported by those who tend to claim to be laissez-faire capitalists. The ironic thing is that what Citizens United hurts the most is the ability of all Americans, no matter how rich or poor, to participate on a true free market.
Hey, I'm thinking that Stevens should have tried spicing up his robe a little bit like Colbert. At least he had a good jab at the end.
Funny how I watched the entire video, and yet I feel like I have learned nothing about the citizens united case except that a corporation can consume water just like a person can drink water. Corporations are people seems to be oversimplifying the matter though. Obviously they have rights, but the same as people? Thats just weird.
James, corporate personhood is an interesting topic and Citizens United is an interesting case. Based on law and precedent, such as the ruling in 1886 case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, corporations have in some ways the same rights as individuals. In Citizens United, this was tested to an extreme extent. The McCain-Feingold Act - or BCRA - prohibited corporations and unions from using money from their general treasury to make electioneering communications 30 days before a primary and 60 days before an election. Citizens United tried to release a movie that was anti-Hillary Clinton, but the FEC said that they couldn't. Citizens United, a nonprofit (which is technically a corporation) took it to the courts, saying that it was a violation of their free speech, and the Supreme Court agreed. The Court did not say that corporations are people, but rather, that they (and unions) have the right to free speech. Speech requires money - wether it is an ad, movie, book, etc. Seems logical? Well, some can argue that corporations shouldn't have that. Remember how I said that the money was coming from the corporations and unions accounts? Well, since corporations are essentially creations of the government (by incorporation laws) it can be argued that they shouldn't have the same right to free speech as an individual. Their CEO does. Their investors do. But not the corporation itself. Same goes for unions. I personally agree with this latter argument. Speechnow.org v. FEC went further, opening up something called a SuperPAC - a type of group that can receive unlimited funds from corporations, unions, etc since it is technically independent, though in reality most SuperPACs ally with a candidate and attack his or her enemies. It is these SuperPACs that Colbert is lambasting via his show and by creating a SuperPAC of his own. He can't technically be affiliated with it, so it is now controlled by his colleague Jon Stewart.
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