Bring on the Corporate Bribes

After the Supreme Court decided that limiting corporate speech amounted to limiting individual speech, thus violating the First Amendment, roughly half of America began running through the streets screaming bloody murder.

I'm here to explain to you why those people are idiots.

Over the past several decades, America has been running an experiment to answer this very question:

What happens when corporations are allowed to spend as much as they want on elections?

You might not know it, but about half the states make no restrictions on what corporations or labor unions can spend on state elections.

Governing Magazine, in collaboration with the Pew Center On The States, releases an annual "Grading the States Report Card," where they compare the governments of all 50 states.

According to the report card, the top three states were Washington, Utah, and Virgina. They each recieved A-minus. And all three allow unlimited spending by corporations and labor unions.


California does not limit corporate spending.

Some facts about California's top campaign contributors:

The Top 10 contributers gave $42 million. Of the Top 10 contributers, 2 were corporations, who gave a combined $7 million.

The Top 3 contributers:

A father and his daughter - $8 million
Alliance for a Better California - $5 million
An Indian Tribe - $4 million

That means, of the $42 million given by the Top 10 contributors, $35 million came from individuals, labor unions, indian tribes, teachers, and prison guards.

So boo fucking hoo, corporations can spend on campaigns, it won't make a bit of difference, so will you idiots do us all a favor and kindly shut the hell up about it already?

[NPR Planet Money]

Two Solutions to Corporate Speech

The debate over corporate speech continues, with lawmakers in the middle trying to find a constitutional way to limit corporate influence in government.

The first such proposal would require a corporation intent on political advocacy to first take a vote from their shareholders.

Representative MIKE CAPUANO (Democratic, Massachusetts): Quite simply, the shareholders, its their money and I think that anybody who is spending money should ask those people who own that money what their opinion is. If the shareholders choose to be involved in political action, thats fine. Apparently the court has said that is legal and thats okay with me. Thats all I want. I wouldnt want somebody reaching into my pocket and taking my money to be used for something I didnt want.

The second idea limits the speech of corporations who have, or want to have, government contracts.

A 2008 Government Accountability Office study found that almost three-quarters of the largest 100 publicly traded firms are federal contractors. If Congress endorsed our proposal, these companies -- and tens of thousands of others -- would face a stark choice: They could endorse candidates or do business with the government, but they couldn't do both. When push came to shove, it's likely that very few would be willing to pay such a high price for their "free speech."

These both seem pretty reasonable to me.