Did the FEC and DOJ miss the point?

[acroyear]

Citizens United argued on the basis of 1) a corporation has legal rights like a person, and 2) money for political purposes is free speech.

I have no idea what the opposition argued outside of precedent, precedent, precedent, and a touch of slippery-slope worst-case scenarios, 'cause that's all the editorialists and puntitocracy are talking about.

I'm wondering if they missed something that does significantly trump the first amendment: The Commerce Clause.

Almost all of the money involved in political advertising crosses state lines at significant points, whether to the corporation paying to make the ad, or the corporation paying to show it.  This is especially true as so many are incorporated in Delaware and other low-tax states, as well as the fact that there are only so many P.R. firms (and they too operate often out of different states from their offices for tax reasons).

So Congress putting limits on certain kinds of spending is certainly within their domain under the Commerce Clause, and any new law written needs to have that explicitly asserted as its basis in order to reverse this decision.

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now, why am i, a somewhat libertarian chap, worried about this?

My concern is that the lack of a spending limit now introduces a pricing war on the advertising firms and media outlets. The amount of air time for commercials and ad-space remains limited, but now the supply of dollars to fill it has no limit at all.

So bingo: bidding war. The networks and local affiliates rake it in, AND eventually one of the two "sides" to a public debate or election, and it WON'T be the side sponsored by the corporations, will be unable to actually meet the price point.

THAT is where this decision creates a corporate oligarchy. The money involved either protects incumbents who support the corporations or poses insurmountable challenges to those who write legislation against them - the other side becomes silenced by the lack of ability to pay for the time.

The Law is no longer just up for sale, it is up for auction to the highest bidder.

Comments

[turnberryknkn.livejournal.com]

Well, whether this decision is a "problem" depends on who you are. Or who you work for. For a lot of folks, everything cited above is the *goal* of their efforts, and not a "problem".