Corporate Political Campaign Spending: Is Democracy for Sale?

Campaign Finance reform has been a topic of interest throughout the history of the United States Government, especially in the more recent decades. There are arguments on both sides of the issue. Proponents of campaign finance limits argue that wealthy donors and corporations hold too much power in elections and as a result they can corrupt campaigns. Those who favor less regulation argue that campaign donations are a form of free speech. One case in particular, Citizens United vs. The Federal Election Commission has altered everything with pertaining to Campaign Finance.

While there is a limit to the amount an individual, group, or corporation can give directly to a political candidate, there is no limit to the amount of money one can give to a super PAC. These super PACs work closely with a candidate’s campaign and pay for many of the candidate’s expenses. Super PACs spend a lot of money on expensive television advertisements to endorse their candidate and degrade their candidate’s opponents. While candidates often have to disclose their direct campaign contributions, super PACS do not. Super PACs are able to keep the sources of most of their funds hidden from the public. Some Senators and Representatives have been working on passing legislation to remove the cap on individuals’ direct campaign contributions. This would allow candidates to campaign without super PACs, making the sources of campaign funding more clear (Price

“All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law” This quote from Theodore Roosevelt illustrates how corporate money can be disastrous when involved in election cycles. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The Supreme Court decided in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that companies and Super PAC’s could donate unlimited amount of money to support candidates. The Citizens United ruling has caused increased political corruption in the United States by giving candidates the money they need to win an election while changing policies that would be beneficial to the company.

One of the issues I am most passionate about is that of money in American politics. Increasing campaign costs, coupled with a decrease in the number of donors contributing to those campaigns, is a disturbing trend which has caused many to feel the need to question the state of our democracy—myself included. The problem of mainstream political corruption and legalized bribery is one that I was made aware of three years ago, and has since become one of the things keeping me up at night most often.

During local, state, or federal election there is a limited amount of time and information that a voter has to help him/her decide for which candidate he or she wants to vote. Before the ruling in Citizens United v FEC, private donations from voters were needed to provide candidates with financial means to create commercials, billboards, etc. In turn, this gave the voters a voice in who is to lead their government. Corporations were limited in the amount they could provide to their candidate of choice. After the ruling, corporations can now match every private donation and contribute an unlimited amount on top of that in order to support their candidate. This creates a problem because a corporation can potentially suffocate voters with campaign ads without the other candidates' ads being heard. Therefore creating an uneven debate and platform for Democracy to work.

Individuals are the primary source of campaign funding at the federal level, with political action committees running a close second. Their donations are regulated donations and are referred to as “hard money.” Organizations also contribute money to campaigns but often do so indirectly in ways that allow them to skirt regulations pertaining to campaign finance.

FEC) limiting campaign spending on the basis that PACs (generated by corporations) where in fact individuals in their own right. As such, all individuals/citizens of the US have a right to spend their money as they see fit, whether that is making a political speech by funding certain campaigns. Therefore, forbidding corporate spending on elections is a clear limitation on freedom of speech guaranteed in the First Amendment of the Constitution. Some argue that not limiting the amount of money into politics will inevitably lead to corruption. However, the First Amendment of the Constitution was not built to protect man against himself but against, the government he created. This topic also brings to light the dilemma over what we, (the people and government), consider a citizen. Webster’s dictionary defines determines that the legal definition of a citizen is “1: a native or naturalized individual who owes allegiance to a government (as of a state or nation) and is entitled to the enjoyment of governmental protection and to the exercise of civil rights” and “2: a resident of a town or state who is also a U.S. native or was naturalized in the U.S.” Based on what a corporation is in that definition; a corporation does appear to meet all the requirements: it is considered an entity in itself that can indeed be based in the US, but does it pledge an alliance to our government? Can a corporation

One main issue raised by presidential hopefuls revolves around campaign money received by candidates, donated by multi-million dollar corporations. Although it remains illegal for these corporations to directly donate large sums of money to political campaigns and political parties, the fear that political and judicial figures in the American political systems are being bought out by these affluent corporations still worries an inordinate amount of people in the United States. In 2009, the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. FEC whether these wealthy companies had the constitutional right to air advertisements they paid for using company expenditures. Similar to Supreme Court cases within the past half-century, the case suggests that

Although the decision didn't affect contributions, it's still illegal for companies and labor unions to give money directly to candidates for federal office. The court said that because these funds were not being spent in coordination with a campaign, they “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”

The case “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission” was to regulate the spendings of candidates campaign, but it failed to succeed. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. (Bentley, 2017) The case was ruled in favor of big business donating private funds to campaigns. They argued because the first amendment protects the right to speak of many corporations and unions, whether or not people see them as human, therefore the are aloud to donate money to a candidate. (Bentley, 2017) In the academic journal written by Bentley, he States the Court majority (Justices Kennedy, Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas) argued, " although government has the authority to prevent corruption or “the appearance of corruption,” it has no place in determining whether large political expenditures are either of those things, so it may not impose spending limits on that basis." This meaning the government cannot enforce spending limits on private donors due to the government not being able to identify the big businesses as "corrupted". Since the government cannot label an organization as corrupt or unjust, therefore the donor can continue to assist the candidate. The main problem is the United States of America seems to avoid this. There is a clear problem with Citizens United being able to continue donating money to candidates without giving them so much power. This can be stopped through a constitutional amendment to strip away the corporations of their rights. (Bentley, 2017) By doing this, there will be a very successful campaign for future candidates due to there being an equal amount of money being distributed to them

Campaign Financing is the process of giving money to either a Super PAC or the candidate themselves. A Super PAC is an organization

The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) was first signed into law in 1971. Under FECA, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was established in order to enforce the laws dictated within this legislation (Federal Election Commission 2015). This organization was created as a means of checking monetary contributions: it monitors soft money contributions, sources of donation, and audits publicly funded committees (Beneson and Tarr 2012). This commission serves an essential purpose of checking campaign finances and prevents mass corruption within campaigns. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold bill, “…Overhauled key features of the campaign finance system, raising individual contribution limits, eliminating soft money, and regulating electioneering communications and other forms of federal election activity” (Panagopoulos 2007). This law placed more stringent regulations on the types of contributions that organizations could make to campaigns, with particular controversy of the elimination of soft money. Although the individual was permitted to increase donations, the principles of the McCain-Feingold bill and the FECA sparked a nation-wide debate about the limits on First Amendment rights

because of a dysfunctional regulatory body. FEC has little to do to stop them. Since 2010 the

After the Citizen United vs. the FEC Supreme Court ruling, in favor of Citizens United, political campaigns have the ability to raise much greater funds through organizations called super PACs. According to Michael Beckel a political reporter for the Center for Public Integrity, “Officially known as “independent expenditure-only committees”— and unofficially dubbed “super PACs”—these political action committees are able to raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations, unions, and other organizations” (Beckel 655). On top of the ability to raise unlimited funds, the individuals donating are not required to disclose their names. This could lead to some serious corruption. Super PACs can run as much advertisement either for or against a political candidate, seriously swaying the way citizen’s vote and view a candidate. In fact “super PACs are allowed to use 100 percent of the funds they raise to influence elections” (Beckel 656). No one expected this Supreme Court ruling to have an impact so fast. As stated in an article published by The Nation, “The total number of TV ads for House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates in 2010 was 2,870,000. This was a 250 percent increase over the number of TV ads

Bribery can be defined as when one is offered money or some other incentive with the intention to corrupt a person’s actions.¬ Bribery is the main component, if not the basis, of government corruption.