Corporate Cash May Steal Election Day Prize

Corporate cash – lots of it – is striking fear in the hearts of more than a few Democratic candidates.

Those Democrats who would ordinarily fend off outlandish, misleading , scandalish attacks by otherwise weak opponents seem to be hiding behind the barricades as the opening campaign guns begin to roar.

2010 United States Supreme Court

Why?

Money. Corporate money!

Think Citizens United v. FEC.

Now that corporations can – and will – give unlimited, unaccountable money to Republican, right wing candidates (and those carrying their Tea Party banners) many Democrats are frozen with fear of the tsunami of misleading ads that will be heading their way.

The combination of overwhelming financial backing by the corporate giants, made possible by the unwise and unjudicial misstep by the five conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the right wing knack for witty, denigrating, misleading political 30-second TV ads, has the Democratic candidates and the party’s leadership in a pique.

OpenSecrets.org reports that 33 organizations – known as super PACS -- have registered with the Federal Election Commission their intention to raise unlimited sums for independent expenditures for either the left or the right.

Riding the wave created by the high court’s gift of “personhood” and “free speech” as if they were flesh and blood – these corporations only marginally moderated by the angry reaction of their customers and the lesser ability of unions to make similar contributions – will undoubtedly find more subtle ways to funnel financial support to their more friendly allies.

You can bet the corporate contributions will have a very undemocratic influence over the upcoming mid-term elections. Similar contributions from unions and others with smaller bankrolls than the world’s most cash-rich corporations are unlikely to offer any real competition.

Unless and until the present five U.S. Supreme Court right wing activist justices are replaced with more moderate justices, the future of elections in America will remain under a grave threat. Citizens United v. FEC must be reversed.

High Court Gone Awry

If you thought the U.S. Supreme Court’s recognition of corporations as “persons” was a catastrophic blow to our political system, don’t look now but the high court’s latest decision by the right wing majority may very well be its death knell.

In its 5-4 decision, the nation’s highest court (image above) has granted expanded rights to corporations that allows them to spend as much money as they would like for the purpose of influencing elections. The First Amendment case is titled Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

The notion that corporations deserve “personhood” is ludicrous on its face. Firstly, corporations have many protections in the law that are not accorded to individuals. Real persons (human beings) are protected within corporations from any real liability for their actions.

If you doubt this, consider the management of those corporations involved in the infamous Savings & Loan scandals of the 1980’s and 1990’s. They got off scot-free!

In our more recent bank bailouts, the managements responsible for the chaos that created the financial disaster we’re still experiencing also were not held accountable.

"It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans," President Barack Obama said.

We can only hope that Congress will find a way to regulate the activities of corporations that would in some small way slow the steady progress toward making the military-industrial complex a complete reality.

The Roberts Court, 2009

Front row: Associate Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Antonin G. Scalia, and Clarence Thomas.
Back row: Associate Justices Samuel A. Alito, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor.