Money Talks, Democracy Walks

Last week, the Supreme Court heard a case about the constitutionality of an Arizona law known as the Citizens Clean Elections Act. Essentially, the law provided for public subsidies for candidates who were far behind in campaign funds to "level the playing field." To the five judges who passed Citizens United last year, this is a now verboten argument, undermining the ability of corporations to overwhelm the voices of the people, or candidates who might not support their interests (and thus don't garner enough of their money). While that is not the argument they use, obviously, it appears to be the foundation of their underlying logic. On the surface, they have just completed the circle on decisions over the past 100 years or have essentially given corporations the same rights as citizens -- one should note without any of the same perceived obligations. In fact, if one thinks about the continued drive for tort reform, the constant push toward deregulation (even after the recent financial crisis and looming ecological disaster) and the attempts to lower or maybe eliminate corporate taxation (the story on GE from a couple of weeks ago was pretty telling -- they earned $14.2 billion in profits, but actually received $3.6 billion more in tax benefits: New York Times, it can be argued that the right wants to give corporations the rights of citizens without any of the responsibilities (or obligations in traditional political science parlance).

Yet the more troubling and recent argument that bodes even worse for democracy is the idea that money is speech. Money certainly talks, as we have been told for time immemorial. But does it speak? Does it allow for a dialogue? Should it be protected by the first amendment? I think the answer to the ironically named anti-federalists that demanded the addition of the bill of rights to the constitution is no. The bill of rights was, in fact, an attempt to protect the rights of individual citizens from excessive power by not only the government, but elites as well. Making money a part of speech undermines the very concept of the constitution, based on limiting not only the tyranny of the majority (as was clearly a concern for both Hamilton and Madison) but of the minority as well. Madison makes this very point in his argument about the power of factions, arguing sufficient diversity of voices fighting for their own interests would ensure that no interests predominated over all. By giving corporations, an entity with a prime directive very different from the individual (profit maximization), the same rights as an individual and money the imprimatur of a form of speech, we essentially allow corporations to not only dominate the debate within DC (as they tend to do through lobbying) but in the public sphere and election process as well (where they have had an undue influence for far too long).

I believe we have already seen the effects of Citizens United in 2010, as the GOP won a landslide in the House and in state governments across the country. Since then, they have started to enact policies that are increasingly troubling to average citizens who recognize that the party supports the interests of the elites and corporations rather than the citizens they essentially bought. Is this democracy? Or is it the results of a stolen election followed by the successful nomination of two Supreme Court justices who pretended to be moderate but ended up being even more radical than their conservative predecessors? I can't help but think of the Pelican Brief as I contemplate the fading signifier we call "democracy."