Shribman: Citizens United ruling changed US politics — but not in the way many feared
Ten years ago this month, the Supreme Court shocked the American political establishment with the declaration that corporations had the same rights as people in the eyes of the First Amendment, and therefore were exempt from restrictions on political spending.
Many conservatives said it would make the system fairer, broadening the open market of ideas and creating a new frontier of freedom of expression in politics. Liberals, for the most part, denounced it as a threat to democracy that would cement power in the hands of the few.
A decade later, the ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission has certainly changed the way money influences American politics - but largely in ways that were unforeseen at the time.
The anticipated flood of corporate money into politics in the form of independent expenditures - that is, spending not affiliated with an individual candidate or campaign - never materialized. Nor did a cascade of funds from labor unions and other left-oriented groups.
Nevertheless, the ruling Jan. 21, 2010, did unleash a torrent of new money into politics in the form of contributions from wealthy individuals - Charles and the late David Koch,Michael Bloomberg,Tom Steyer,George Soros and others. Citizens United allowed them to use super PACs as vehicles for unlimited infusions of money into politics. It also allowed nonprofit groups to more easily keep the sources of campaign funding secret, allowing so-called dark money to influence elections.
Like the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision itself, the effects of the ruling have been complex, breaking some new ground in American politics and affirming existing trends.
“You could say that elections are up for sale, and yes, it was a horrible decision,” said Anthony Corrado Jr., who teaches political theory at Colby College and is regarded as a leading expert in campaign finance. “But the point is that the effect that the Supreme Court seemed to create has been less, and different, than often claimed.”
To be sure, any Supreme Court ruling that put Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the American Civil Liberties Union on the same side had the potential to disrupt long-held alliances and smash stereotypes.
The Citizens United decision was widely perceived as a boon for the right and may have played a role in the big gains that Republicans enjoyed in 2010, the year the ruling came down. But since then, Democrats have mostly caught up.
The biggest effect of the ruling has been to engage and empower the very wealthiest Americans, across the political spectrum. The top 100 individual donors contributed $339 million in the 2012 presidential campaign year. That figure leaped to $768 million in the next presidential campaign year, 2016.
Overall, total individual donors to super PACs grew in just two years from $299 million in 2014 to $1.1 billion, with some of that money coming from trust funds, including $7 million from the trusts of the conservative Koch brothers.
“In other words,” according to a report by the Committee for Economic Development of the Conference Board, a business-oriented research group, “individuals, including a relatively small number of individuals who make seven- or eight-figure contributions, have been responsible for the dramatic growth of super PACs.”
Many of the top funders in the last midterm congressional elections are well known to the public. The top three were Sheldon Adelson, the founder of Las Vegas Sands Corp. ($122 million); Bloomberg, the former New York mayor now running for the Democratic presidential nomination ($95 million); and Steyer, the hedge fund manager who also is a Democratic presidential candidate ($73 million). Ranked slightly lower are Soros, the liberal financier, and Amazon entrepreneur Jeff Bezos.
Of those, only Adelson is consistently associated with the Republican Party and right-wing causes.
Overall, the 100 top donors were responsible for two-thirds to three-quarters of all the money raised by super PACs, greatly exceeding the amount given by corporations.
“Citizens United is enabling small groups of the very wealthy of the right and left to have undue influence over politics,” said Steve Westly, a former state controller of California and an unsuccessful 2006 gubernatorial candidate who is now raising money for former Vice President Joe Biden's presidential campaign.
These massive infusions came as the influence of money in American politics was expanding. Spending on presidential elections, for example, grew 66% from the 2000 campaign between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore to the 2016 campaign between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. At the same time, spending on congressional campaigns grew 143%.
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