The Citizens United Effect

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC – widely acknowledged as a radical departure from precedent – defined corporate campaign spending as Constitutionally protected free speech. The Jan. 21, 2010 ruling opened the floodgates for corporations, unions, and non-profit front groups wishing to keep their funders anonymous and to spend unlimited funds on political ads." (https://movetoamend.org/citizens-united-v-americas-citizens-voters-guide)

Supposedly, corporations  now have constitutional rights. Limits on their political campaign spending are held to be violations of their right of free speech. If money is declared to be speech, then some of us have a right to much more free speech than others.

And, of course, campaign financing is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our being ruled by economic elites.  The newly created corporate constitutional rights have had a direct effect on environmental, educational, health, labor, consumer, and reproductive freedom issues among many others.

When we begin to insist that corporate money is not 'speech,' and that corporations are not people, we begin to give power back to common people. Addressing the complex problem of corporate power requires, of course, more than recognition that corporations are not people. We also need a shared understanding of what corporations are and what they should and should not be doing in our national life.