Editorials: Thanks, Citizens United, for This Campaign Finance Mess We're In | Adam Skaggs/The Atlantic

Before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee Tuesday, the Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro became the latest to come out swinging against critics of Citizens United, testifying that the case is one of the most misunderstood high court decisions ever and claiming that “it doesn’t stand for half of what many people say it does.” Shapiro joins a chorus of Citizens United defenders, including First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams and his son Dan — the latter of whom has railed against what he calls the media’s “shameful, inexcusable distortion” of the case — as well as the New York Times Magazine‘s chief political correspondent, Matt Bai, who recently wrote that liberal criticism of the decision is “just plain wrong.” To be sure, it would be an oversimplification to suggest the decision is the only cause of our current Wild West campaign finance environment. But those criticizing the critics of Citizens United miss the forest for the trees. Their myopic focus on debunking overstatements about the case downplays the major roleCitizens United played in ushering in current conditions — and how it fits with the Roberts Court’s ongoing project to put our democracy up for auction. The defense of Citizens United rests on two primary claims about the case, one factual and one legal. Its defenders contend, first, that while Citizens United only concerned corporate election spending, the facts show that it is spending by individuals — not corporations — that counts this year. Next, they argue that, as a legal matter, individual spenders have been free to make unlimited political donations since long beforeCitizens United. They’re wrong on both counts.
It’s true that individuals have donated more than corporations to super PACs, but it’s misleading to suggest corporate dollars don’t matter. A recent analysis by the Washington Times, for example, showed that “nearly 200 companies gave $8.6 million to super PACs in June” — the highest total yet this year — including “many repeat givers who have given a total of $18 million.” And corporate donations to super PACs are just the tip of the iceberg. More corporate money is flowing into non-profit “social welfare” groups and trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spend millions of dollars on electioneering but don’t reveal their donors. Corporate donors afraid of alienating customers prefer these groups because they allow the corporations to remain anonymous — except when a company like Aetna accidentally reveals that it gave more than $7 million to such groups to influence elections. As the New York Times recently reported, secretive tax-exempt groups outspent super PACs by a 3-to-2 margin in 2010, and “such groups have accounted for two-thirds of the political advertising bought by the biggest outside spenders so far in the 2012 election cycle.”
Just as misguided as downplaying corporate election spending this year is suggesting that there’s nothing new about the unlimited contributions that individuals are making — like the up to $100 million that casino magnate Sheldon Adelson has pledged to defeat President Obama. Defenders of Citizens United say individuals like Adelson have had the right to spend unlimited sums since 1976, when the Supreme Court decided the seminal campaign finance case Buckley v. Valeo.
Full Article: Thanks, Citizens United, for This Campaign Finance Mess We’re In – Adam Skaggs – The Atlantic.