By Shawn Mitchell
Monday, July 08, 2013
Most liberals who rail against the Supreme Court’s
Citizens United case probably don’t realize they’re useful pawns for a sinister
cause. These earnest chanters of slogans and sporters of bumper stickers say
they want to overturn the case or amend the Constitution to “get big money out
of politics.” They think they’re just fighting for clean government. In
reality, they’re cheerleading for the Obama administration to wage a broader
battle in the long war to intimidate and silence conservative America.
Like a horror
movie’s teasing scenes, where campers laugh, oblivious to the monster in the
shadows, this report is more about what would have happened without Citizens
United. But the danger is easy to see
and the monster’s not dead, as activists and liberal journalists fan a
simmering movement to keep the issue alive, even passing a number of state
initiatives and referenda, calling to amend and limit the First Amendment.
The initiatives are broadly popular among a public that
believes fighting Citizens United is just common sense. But almost everything
the public has heard and believes about the case is wrong. As the Left and its
media amplifiers describe it: “The Supreme Court said corporations are people
with constitutional rights. So, nothing can stop big business from spending
billions of dollars to buy elections and control politics. And that’s wrong.
People have constitutional rights; corporations don’t.”
Space doesn’t permit explaining all the factual and legal
confusion in that simplistic blurb. But even the briefest thought should
destroy the childishly appealing arguments. Of course companies enjoy
constitutional protections. They should. The alternative sounds like Ted
Kennedy’s deceitful hallucination about Robert Bork’s America: Police could
kick down doors and seize materials without warrants or cause; Officials could
deny permits or shut businesses down without reason or due process. Governments
could confiscate equipment, property, or land without just compensation.
Companies could be charged and convicted of crimes without juries or even
trials.
That all sounds outrageous because we understand that
Constitutional protections like the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh
Amendments prohibit such abuses. Critics of Citizens United have to explain why
they believe the First Amendment, unlike other Constitutional rights, applies
only to people, not organizations.
If they’re handicapped by a law school education, they’ll
probably have little difficulty constructing a serpentine argument weaving
through the rights to do just that. But then, they’ll discover the serpent has
looped around to sink its fangs in their rear. They just argued the entire
media out from under First Amendment protections: media companies are
corporations, too. By their flawed logic, George Will or Paul Krugman may have
a right to free speech as individuals, but Congress is free to slap whatever
restrictions or gags it wants on the output of ABC, the New York Times, and all
those other big, bad corporations. That’s the nonsensical result of arguing
speech rights can only be personal.
Important too is that Citizens United didn’t just affirm
the rights of for-profit corporations,
but of all corporate forms, all of whom were barred by law from political
speech during elections. That includes nonprofits, labor unions, and advocacy
organizations, from the Sierra Club to the National Rifle Association. Further,
the case hasn’t unleashed the predicted torrent of election speech by
for-profit corporations. Unlike interest groups, who speak for particular
causes, big business generally seeks profits and market share. Corporations are
quite image conscious and sensitive to things that drive off lots of customers.
In all, Citizens United provokes opposition and intensity
out of all proportion to its real world impact, except for one consequence you
won’t find in the talking points or bumper stickers: It denied the
administration a weapon just as the Chicago goon squad--after the 2010
shellacking--was looking for every weapon it could find. The president himself
was an early and furious detractor, famously breaching decorum to insult the
ceremonially hostage Supreme Court at his State of the Union address.
In the harsh light of the IRS scandal, and news other
agencies targeted conservatives, it’s impossible to doubt the administration
saw an even more useful tool in FEC prosecutions aimed to silence inconvenient
companies. The IRS had to wait like a web-bound spider for self-selected
organizing groups to seek non-profit status. In contrast, enforcing a ban on
political speech, however that term might be creatively construed, against
corporate America, offered the FEC a wide and happy hunting ground. No need to
wait for a rag tag bunch to present itself seeking your blessing. Instead,
Obama enforcers in the mold of Lois Lerner could scan the landscape for scalps,
or, for the occasional “crucifixion” as the loose-lipped EPA administrator was
caught boasting.
Targeted prosecutions could have spread quite a pall and
chill across business big and small as word spread: “Stay away from politics.
Who needs the brain damage?”
In 2010 and 11, the political landscape was a hostile
place for team Obama. Americans had just repudiated his entire case for
governing and Congress was running scared. Shrewd minds like Axelrod and
Jarrett looked for new and potent ways to bleed force from the massing
movement. They found them. But Citizens United denied them a formidable
switchblade indeed, and may have saved untold blood.
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