Please switch to another browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Edge for a better experience. Federal Election Commission overruling an earlier decision, Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce Austin , that allowed prohibitions on independent expenditures by corporations.
The Court also overruled the part of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission that held that corporations could be banned from making electioneering communications. The Court upheld the reporting and disclaimer requirements for independent expenditures and electioneering communications. The Federal Election Campaign Act "the Act" prohibits corporations and labor unions from using their general treasury funds to make electioneering communications or for speech that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a federal candidate.
An electioneering communication is generally defined as "any broadcast, cable or satellite communication" that is "publicly distributed" and refers to a clearly identified federal candidate and is made within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election.
Citizens United wanted to pay cable companies to make the film available for free through video-on-demand, which allows digital cable subscribers to select programming from various menus, including movies. Citizens United sought declaratory and injunctive relief against the Commission in the U. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that the ban on corporate electioneering communications at 2 U.
The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction in the case. In reconsidering Austin , the Court found that the justifications that supported the restrictions on corporate expenditures are not compelling.
The Court also rejected an anticorruption rationale as a means of banning independent corporate political speech. While wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups have long had an outsized influence in elections, that sway has dramatically expanded since the Citizens United decision, with negative repercussions for American democracy and the fight against political corruption.
A conservative nonprofit group called Citizens United challenged campaign finance rules after the FEC stopped it from promoting and airing a film criticizing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton too close to the presidential primaries.
A majority of the Supreme Court sided with Citizens United, ruling that corporations and other outside groups can spend unlimited money on elections. The justices who voted with the majority assumed that independent spending cannot be corrupt and that the spending would be transparent, but both assumptions have proven to be incorrect.
With its decision, the Supreme Court overturned election spending restrictions that date back more than years. Previously, the court had upheld certain spending restrictions, arguing that the government had a role in preventing corruption. The ruling has ushered in massive increases in political spending from outside groups, dramatically expanding the already outsized political influence of wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups.
In the immediate aftermath of the Citizens United decision, analysts focused much of their attention on how the Supreme Court designated corporate spending on elections as free speech.
A Brennan Center report by Daniel I. An election system that is skewed heavily toward wealthy donors also sustains racial bias and reinforces the racial wealth gap. Citizens United also unleashed political spending from special interest groups. In the case Speechnow.
In other words, super PACs are not bound by spending limits on what they can collect or spend. Additionally, super PACs are required to disclose their donors, but those donors can include dark money groups, which make the original source of the donations unclear. And while super PACs are technically prohibited from coordinating directly with candidates, weak coordination rules have often proven ineffective.
Notably, the bulk of that money comes from just a few wealthy individual donors. In the election cycle, for example, the top donors to super PACs contributed nearly 78 percent of all super PAC spending. The majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy , held that the First Amendment protects the right to free speech, even if the speaker is a corporation, and effectively removed limitations on corporate funding of independent political broadcasts. In its decision in Citizens United vs.
FEC , the Supreme Court did endorse the longstanding idea that spending in a political campaign should be disclosed to the public in order to prevent corruption.
In a related case, SpeechNow. FEC , the U. Court of Appeals for the D. Circuit cited the Citizens United decision when it struck down limits on the amount of money that individuals could give to organizations that expressly supported political candidates.
In the years since the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Citizens United vs. FEC , hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into these super PACs, allowing a relatively small group of wealthy individuals and corporations to exert an outsize influence on local, state and federal elections. Citizens United v. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Even before the U. Constitution was created, its framers understood that it would have to be amended to confront future challenges and adapt and grow alongside the new nation.
In creating the amendment process for what would become the permanent U. Constitution, the framers The United Nations U. The 26 Amendment lowered the legal voting age in the United States from 21 to The long debate over lowering the voting age began during World War II and intensified during the Vietnam War, when young men denied the right to vote were being conscripted to fight for their The eight men knew the next step they took would not only change their lives, it could possibly end them as well.
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