The magazine of the North Carolina Center for Voter Education • Saturday May 19, 2012

'Corporate Speech' Could Drown Out American Voices

By Damon Circosta
Published: Jan. 24, 2011

RALEIGH - This week marks the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. FEC. The case essentially granted corporations the same First Amendment rights as those enjoyed by flesh-and-blood individuals, opening up more avenues for corporations to engage in political activities.

The decision has invited a maelstrom of commentary. That is rare for Supreme Court pronouncements, which usually go unnoticed by the public.

Much of the decision’s fallout has focused on the supposed rightward bent of the corporations that stand to gain from the ruling. It is true that in the 2010 election cycle, more corporate money was spent in support of conservative candidates, rather than their liberal-leaning opponents. But this is by no means an indicator that corporate money will always flow to one party.

American corporations are not ideological. Corporations, by their very structure, must be concerned about one thing: the bottom line. The people who run corporations have a legal duty to put profits of the shareholders above all else, even above political values. In corporate America, making money isn’t just the right thing to do -- it’s the only thing to do.

This fact doesn’t make corporations evil, good or anything in between. They were created and designed solely so that people could pool their resources to produce goods and services. On the other hand, our political system cannot be so single-minded.

Democracy, unlike corporations, was designed to incorporate an array of voices so that we might co-exist. With its focus on inclusion and deliberation, democracy is messy and not nearly as capable as corporations of creating efficiency.

Sometimes when we watch our democracy in practice it makes us long for the unrelenting focus that corporations have. In the pull and tug and meandering and arguing that comes with trying to accommodate so many different societal views, we may want to just throw up our hands and say enough.

But as tempting as it may be to hand over this process to corporate America, we must resist. For it is in all the back and forth that we can come to a reasonable accommodation.

The decision in Citizens United won’t hand over our democracy to corporate America tomorrow. But before we go too far down this path of corporate influence on democracy, we ought to stop and consider the ramifications.

When our Founding Fathers created a political system, they were mindful that capitalism is what drives America. They took care not to slow down this economic engine. But they were also aware that if corporations were given too much sway they could have a disastrous effect on our society.

Thomas Jefferson, himself no fan of a powerful central government, said, “I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

On this first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, what are we to think about the current state of corporate participation in democracy? One thing is certain. We are in an era where businesses are looking to play an increased role in elections.

And so we must be mindful that corporations are by design interested in lawmaking only so far as it helps them with moneymaking. Ensuring that business interests don’t become our only interests is not a liberal or conservative idea, but one in which we all can play a role.