by Mary Beall

President Obama’s State of the Union inflamed the passions of manyAmericans when he stated that: “The Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign corporations –- to spend without limit in our elections. I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people.” But what exactly did the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC do?

Citizens United sought an injunction (would have prevented FEC from enforcing certain parts of BCRA) against the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the application of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) to its film Hillary: The Movie. The Movie expressed opinions about whether Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would make a good president. Citizens argued that Section 203 of BCRA violated the First Amendment and when Sec. 203 was applied to The Movie, and that Sections 201 and 203 of BCRA were unconstitutional when applied to the circumstances of the case.

In every court case there are issues. An issue is a question that the court is ruling upon. In Citizens United v. FEC the issues are:

1)Whether the Supreme Court’s decision in McConnell resolved all constitutional challenges to the BCRA when it upheld the disclosure requirements of the act as constitutional.

2)Whether the BCRA’s disclosure requirements impose an unconstitutional burden when applied to electioneering requirements.

3)Whether the lack of a clear message to vote for or against a particular candidate is subject to regulation under the BCRA.

4)Whether a feature length documentary (such as Hillary:The Movie) about a candidate for political office should be subject to regulation under the BCRA.

Answers:

1) No: But, the majority held that the BCRA’s disclosure requirements as applied to The Movie were constitutional, reasoning that disclosure is justified by a “governmental interest” in providing the “electorate with information” about election-related spending resources.

2) No: See above.

3) Yes

4) Yes

Alright that is all pretty confusing so I’m going to briefly explain what that all means.

The Supreme Court, contrary to popular belief, upheld the ban on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions. Also, the Supreme Court upheld the disclosure requirement for any political advertisement sponsors. The Supreme Court overturned two of BCRA’s restrictions on corporate and union political speech: first, the prohibition on expressly advocating in favor or against electing a candidate and, secondly the restriction that prevented unions and corporations from broadcasting ads that merely state the name of a candidate within 60 days of the election. So corporations and unions cannot directly fund a candidate, and however much money they spend on advertisements will have to be disclosed. None of this seems like a big issue does it.

After President Obama’s riveting State of the Union I believed that corporations could give all their money to a candidate, that there were no restrictions and that corporate spending would go crazy. Well that is not the case with Citizens United. Now we can all go back to our lives and believe everything is perfect, right? Wrong. For those of you who still disagree with the Supreme Courts decision I would like to give you something more to think about.

Under BCRA, unions and corporations couldn’t directly advocate voting for a candidate or advertise in support or negation of a candidate but, newspapers (The New York Times) and other media corporations (CNN, Fox, MSNBC) could. Most of us would agree that media sources have a abysmal impact upon our perception of political candidates. And yet media bias goes largely unnoticed.

The Center for Media and Public Affiars (CMPA) reported in 2008 that “72 percent of the statements in TV news reports about Obama in late spring and early summer were negative, whereas 57 percent of the statements about Mc- Cain were negative [my guess is that this is due to the heated race between Obama and Clinton].”

It is disturbing that the law currently grants a favored position to media corporations, regardless of this discrepancy the government should not restrict any form of political speech, unless its libel or slander, be it from the media, NRA, or Planned Parenthood.

As Justice Scalia stated, Americans cannot support a “theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concern.”

The First Amendment protects right of the KKK emit asphyxiating statements, the production of pornography, and flag burning. Yet some believe that the First Amendment does not allow corporations to produce commercials or support or oppose a candidate. Which seems more caustic to society, the KKK defaming minorities or the Archie Bray supporting a candidate?

Buckley v. Valeo stated that “restrict[ing]the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment.” Similarily Justice Kennedy stated, “The civic discourse belongs to the people, and the Government may not prescribe the means used to conduct it.”