By Phil Baker – NYA
If there is one thing that best explains why so many of us believe Washington is broken, it is the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
The 2010 ruling opened the floodgates to unlimited political spending by corporations, unions and wealthy individuals. The Court extended First Amendment protections to corporate political spending that transformed our elections. The result has been an explosion of Super PACs, dark money organizations, and billion-dollar campaigns.
Social Democrats have long argued that Citizens United strikes at the heart of representative government. Their view is that democracy should operate on the principle of one person, one vote—not one dollar, one vote.
When corporations and billionaires can spend virtually unlimited sums influencing elections, the voices of ordinary citizens inevitably become less powerful. And as income disparity has become greater, it’s possible for a few billionaires to significantly skew an election.
While most Democratic politicians publicly oppose Citizens United, many have become equally dependent on the post-Citizens United fundraising system as Republicans.
The decision has created a political arms race in which neither party can afford to reject unlimited outside spending without risking defeat. So while many mainstream Democrats oppose it, they cannot afford to not participate.
Politicians know who finances the Super PACs supporting them. The industries that spend heavily gain access – even more so in the current administration that pretty much advertises this strategy. Major donors receive meetings that ordinary voters rarely do. Trump supporting big oil and abandoning wind power and solar is an obvious example.
Defenders argue that political spending is simply another form of free speech. But free speech is not meaningful when one citizen can spend a few hundred dollars while another can spend $100 million. Elections become less a contest of ideas than a contest of financial resources.
This is why Social Democrats continue to push for overturning Citizens United and imposing stricter campaign finance rules that require full disclosure of political donations and expanding public financing of elections.
Fifteen years after Citizens United, the consequences have been catastrophic. We have grown cynical about government, convinced that elected officials are responsive only to wealthy donors. Citizens United has done as much as any single court decision to undermine that confidence and is the prime reason for the corruption and money in politics.
We have been shown that the reason to vote Social Democrat and not Democrat or Republican, is to save our system of voting, the one we still believe in – One citizen – One vote. That way we can end the rampant corruption that is destroying our Democracy.