How Does Corporate Politics Influence Public Good?

“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.

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.

These laws were the perfect way for the state to make sure that the system is stable in the future. Just recently on April 2nd, the Supreme Court of the United States turned down the overall cap on monetary political donations. This is a classic case of the state adopting policies to ensure the stability of the system. Coping the scheme of citizens united the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision allows an individual to donate as much money as they please to federal candidates in a two year election cycle. Although federal law bans direct contributions to campaigners by corporations and business, super pacs allow money to get to the politicians without direct contact. But this law still allows wealthy individuals to support the candidates that will represent their needs and wants in the national government. This creates an unfair system aimed at helping the elites because they will have more money to donate therefore will have more of the campaigners attention. Justice Breyer realized the importance of this decision being turned down and was recorded writing “Where enough money calls the tune,” he wrote, “the general public will not be heard.” (New York Times).

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

The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 is a "law that requires all candidates to fully disclose all contributions and expenditures in excess of $100." (pg.161) This law proved very helpful because in 1968, before they really started pushing disclosure, candidates would report spending $8.5 million but four years later candidates were reporting that they had spent about $88.9 million. It was a giant leap in what they were spending, over ten times the said amount. The FECA also made it to where "it was permissible for corporations and labor unions to set up separate, segregated funds that could be used for a political purpose." (pg.161) Having this created a lot of PACs that would give political parties and interest groups money to running

-In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) the Supreme Court ruled that corporations can spend freely to support or oppose candidates for

New PACs formed with each election year and they had the ability to fund a candidate of their choice, and to force that candidate to try to carry out the organization's goals, no matter how detrimental. Ultimately, PACs lead to Super PACs, which, in addition to sharing many attributes to PACs, can raise and donate significantly larger sums of money, and hide the names of their donors for long periods of time. Additionally, Independent Expenditures organizations face no restrictions on the amount of money they can raise, and 501(c) groups can completely conceal the identities of their donors for the duration of an election season. In fact, 501(c) groups have become so powerful that they provide approximately half the money used during election seasons with the hope of swaying citizens to vote for their favored candidate. (Karlan 13) These organizations clearly demonstrate the effect and the power that money holds in both elections and the government in general. However, Pamela S. Karlan, a professor of law at Stanford Law School, shares this message: “However, money is only one symptom of a deeper political pathology.” This serves as a reminder that dollar bills can not singularly take blame for the uncertainty in our

No one knows how much of that money came from corporate treasures. The courts five to four decision said that is it OK for corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want to convince people to vote for or against a candidate. The courts decision also stated that the first amendment prohibits government from placing limits on independent spending for political purposes by corporations and unions.

The Federal Court Case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee is a case with a controversial outcome. The Supreme Court came to the decision, through a 5-4 vote, that for-profit corporations have the same rights to finance political campaigns as citizens. The Supreme Court held in Citizens United that it was unconstitutional to ban free speech through the limiting of independent advertisements by corporations, associations, or unions (CU vs. FEC). The Supreme Court Decision allows corporations and unions to use their financial resources to either promote or persuade against any political candidate on an advertisement. The ruling also allows corporations and unions to donate to political campaigns and does away with any limits on how much a corporate donor can contribute to a campaign (ibid). While the businesses may not give money straight to campaigns, they have the choice to persuade the population of voters as a whole through the use of advertisements, just as Political Action Committees do. The corporate funding of political advertisements is made possible by the First Amendment because it guarantees the right to free speech, and political spending is one form of that protected speech.

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

It is unsensible to believe that even the upper crest of the US financially can keep up with a corporation. Therefore receiving donations from corporations is the candidate's main goal, while ignoring the many small donors that truly represent America’s views. While there is no solid proof of corporations influencing candidates decisions thee have been sketchy moment in which corporations money influencing candidates decisions have been suspected. In 2000 when Bush was running for president an energy company based in Houston, Enron donated a substantial amount of money to Bush. They donated 2.5 million making them the highest donating energy company and the 36th highest corporate donator. After Bush was elected he passed 6 bills extremely beneficial for Enron that multiplied their revenue by nearly three times. In all Corporations donating limitless to candidates forces a candidate to pass bills beneficial for their donors and not the majority of people. This needs to stop or the purity of America’s political system goes down the

In 2009, Citizens United, a nonprofit organization, sued the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which led to the controversial Supreme Court case that resulted in the removal of some of the limitations on how corporations can spend money in elections. The Court majority argued that restricting independent political spending is the equivalent of disregarding the right to free speech. However, many Democrats and some Republicans believe that the power and sway of corporations have a corrupting influence on American democracy; even if deals aren’t made, the immense concentration of direct contributions from the wealthiest 1 percent of the population gives them an unusual influence over the political system. It is for this reason that almost every Democrat insists on the reversal of Citizens United. President Obama, in his 2010 State of the Union address, reprimanded the Supreme Court justices for their decision. The court, he stated, "reversed a century of law that..will open the floodgates for special interests...to spend without limit in our elections" (Obama 2010). Democratic lawmakers, activists, and supporters condemned the ruling as a "disaster" and "bad for American democracy" (Kroll 2014). However, are the fears and concerns of Democrats valid and justified? While it is true that there has been an increase in independent political spending following the 2010 decision, it is up for debate whether this is just a systematic increase or one that warrants close scrutiny. I

When President Barack Obama charged on the Supreme Court in 2010 during the State of the Union, he said that the Supreme Court had allowed corporations to spend vast amounts of money in federal elections. To this claim, Justice Alito replied “simply not true”. In a way Justice Alito was right because the case Citizens United did not change the amount of money that corporations can spend in federal elections. The Supreme Court simply modified the timeframe in which corporations could spend their wealth to support political candidates. In simple words, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations could spend money promoting a candidate all the way through the day of the

You need money to run a campaign, and each federal election will eventually come down to who contributed the most money. The Service Employees International Union denounced the decision saying, “Today the US Supreme Court lifted the floodgates and started dismantling century-old restrictions on corporate electoral activiy in the name of the 'free speech rights' of corporations—meaning if you a 'corporate person', you are now free to hit the corporate ATM and spend whatever of your shareholders' money it takes to elect the candidates of your choice.” However, money doesn't buy elections. This couldn't have been made anymore evident by the 2016 election. (campaignfreedom.org, opensecrets,org) Clinton raised 687.3 million dollars to fund her campaign, while Trump raised a mere 306.9 million dollars. Not only that, ads for Clinton were triple the amount of ads for Trump. And most importantly, the three biggest super PACS (making a whopping one-fourth of total campaign contributions), all supported losing candidates. This election made it clear that money is less important than the person. People didn't vote for Hillary because of her emails and her corruptness, while people voted for Donald because we wasn't politically correct and desired change.

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