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Good morning, Roca Nation. Here are today’s four need-to-know stories:
President Trump hosted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House (free)
Pentagon officials arrived in Ukraine to discuss peace prospects with Russia
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced it will not release a standalone jobs report for October due to disruptions from the government shutdown (free)
Nvidia reported high third-quarter earnings that exceeded expectations and eased concerns of an AI bubble
This is part 2 of a three-part series on how the Citizens United decision led to the rise of Super PACs and “dark money.” If you missed part 1 yesterday, read it here.
By Max Frost
When the Supreme Court voted 5-4 in Citizens United, the predictions were dire.
The decision “paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections” and “thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century,” The New York Times wrote.
“Voters should prepare for the worst: cash-drenched elections presided over by free-spending corporations,” editorialized the San Francisco Chronicle.
President Obama predicted that the decision “will open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.”
Citizens United had overturned legislation and enabled corporations (both for-profit and non-profit) and unions to use their cash to buy ads explicitly in support of or opposed to a candidate. Or, as it’s often been said, it affirmed that corporations have free speech, too.
The primary concerns about Citizens United were twofold: That it would give corporations undue influence over American politics and that it would let corporations with foreign ownership shape American elections.
Yet the ruling wasn’t without its supporters.
Generally speaking, the decision’s backers said it advanced free speech by making it easier for people and entities to express their political viewpoints. Many also claimed that the prior system had entrenched party interests at the expense of the public, whose advocacy rights had been limited.
As the lawyer for Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit, said:
The decisions that the Court today overruled rested on the faulty premise that political speech can be restricted in order to prevent corporate money from "distorting" political discourse. In fact, the vast majority of corporations are either nonprofit advocacy groups – like Citizens United – or small businesses. Far from ‘distorting’ the political process, the speech of these corporations reflects the views of their members or the entrepreneurial individuals who formed the corporation. Permitting these individuals to have a voice in the political process adds an important perspective to the public debate and enables individuals of limited means to band together to counterbalance the political speech of the super-rich.
Yet the impact ended up being perhaps far greater – and far different – from what anyone expected. In this installment, we look at what came next and how Citizens United paved the way for the billion-dollar elections we have today.
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Editor’s Note
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for part 3 tomorrow.
Find part 1 and our other recent articles below in case you missed them:
See you back here tomorrow,
Max and Max
