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Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission involves a broad challenge to Congress’s authority to regulate campaign spending by corporations. On the last day of the 2008 October Term, the Supreme Court ordered new briefing on whether two key precedents –including a part of McConnell v. FEC, which upheld the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law– should be overruled. On July 31, CAC filed a brief with the League of Women Voters of the United States, explaining that the text and history of our Constitution make clear that campaign expenditures by corporations can be subject to greater regulation than expenditures by individuals.

Starting with the founders, who wrote the Constitution to protect “We the People” and never mentioned “corporations,” our constitutional story has been one of democratic progress, moving American democracy toward broader enfranchisement and more meaningful political participation for individual American citizens. Regulation of corporate influence in elections has helped make this march of progress possible. Before the first campaign finance legislation was passed in 1907, our country was at risk of becoming, as former President Rutherford Hayes wrote in his diary, “a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.” If the Court reverses key precedents allowing regulation of corporate money in elections, corporate influence could once again threaten to overwhelm electoral politics in the United States.
 

The court heard re- arguments in this case on September 9, 2009. The following is a statement by CAC's President and Founder, Doug Kendall, on the oral arguments:

 “The Court’s newest Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, rightly focused debate today on constitutional first principles: our Constitution was established for the benefit of “we the people,” and never uses the word “corporation.”  Since the dawn of the Republic, the Court has recognized that corporations are artificial entities that enjoy unique advantages and must therefore be subject to greater government oversight. If the Court turns its back on this constitutional text and history, it will blatantly disregard the will of the people and unleash corporate influence on elections.”

In a special session on Thursday, January 21st, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Citizens United, reversing the judgment of the D.C. Circuit Court. The following is CAC's press release regarding the Court's decision: 

The Supreme Court today re-wrote the Constitution to give corporations—never mentioned in the Constitution—the same right to influence the electoral process as “We the People.” 

 The federal political process is the centerpiece of our constitutional democracy.  Corporations cannot vote in elections, stand for election, or serve as elected officials, but the Court today ruled they can overwhelm the political process using profits generated by the special privileges granted to corporations alone. Two centuries ago, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Marshall recognized that corporations are artificial creatures of the State, subject to government oversight to ensure they do not abuse the special privileges granted to them.  But today, in the name of the First Amendment, the Court gives corporations the right to drown out the voices of individual Americans. 

 The Court’s ruling could transform our electoral politics.  During 2008 alone, Exxon Mobil Corporation generated profits of $45 billion.  With a diversion of even two percent of those profits to the political process, this one company could have outspent both presidential candidates and fundamentally changed the dynamic of the 2008 election. 

The Court’s decision today is startlingly activist and a sharp departure from constitutional text and history; our democracy will suffer for it.  We can only hope that the ruling is as short-lived as it is wrongly decided.

For further explanation of why we feel this case was wrongly decided, read our narrative draft about corporations and the Constitution.

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