Likely outrage --> constitutional amendment via special convention? (4.00 / 2)

A ruling allowing unlimited corporate influence over elections would rightly outrage large supermajorities of the population. What prospects are there for a constitutional amendment to overhaul election law? Could a court ruling like this be an instance of overreach on the part of corporate power, presenting the opportunity for a "swinging gate" counter-offensive?

Obviously, a direct rollback of corporate power would be called for, perhaps by banning all non-human or non-citizen election spending, perhaps through public funding or mandatory candidate access on all licensed public airwaves. But could a wide-ranging and comprehensive election reform package also pass muster in state legislatures or conventions (including open debates, expansion of House seats, etc.)?

Would it be easier to pass an amendment like this via Article V convention, rather than congressional ballot? It seems like this should be seriously considered: since unlimited corporate cash could finish the job of killing off our democracy, the fate of this awful new election system could be game point for the corporate feudalists.

http://www.funnyordie.com/jame...

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by: mildewmaximilian @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 10:50:35 AM UTC

Yes, you would need something like this (4.00 / 1)

to actually get damn spending limits via constitutional amendments.  I wonder if you could add something giving Congress the authority to set a primary timetable too, while you're at it.  

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by: Valatan @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 13:35:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Corporatocracy is not Democracy (4.00 / 3)

It is oligarchy. It is also, according to Adam Smith, no longer an enabler of free market capitalism, but of monopoly capitalism:

"To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always the interest of the dealers ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."

The Wealth of Nations, Book I Chapter XI

Remember, this is a Supreme Court that played a key role in the electoral coup we so quaintly refer to as "the 2000 Presidential election". And it was not a bloodless coup. I do not think that hundreds of thousands of innocent foreigners would have died or hundreds more been tortured and murdered if Al Gore had been elected.

It's all about the money now. (It always was, but at least now progressives don't have to pretend it isn't.) From this point, whichever presidential candidate raises the most money wins. Corporations are the real citizens in this country. The rest of us are just visiting.

I guess this makes Rahm a prophet of sorts.

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by: Michael Harold @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 11:56:54 AM UTC

I don't think this would favor Republicans actually (4.00 / 1)

Republicans already get around or ignore the law.

However one thing this ruling would do (I think) is allow movies to be made and promoted about Republicans at election time.  (Like Oliver Stone's W)

Right now only corporations that behave unethically really get involved in politics because they have to behave unethically to get involved in politics.

And I am sure they don't care about any of the current "limits".

The founding fathers specifically designed the government to make sure that moneyed interests controlled it.  The current situation simply gives more favor to the people willing and able to ignore the law.

http://transgendermom.blogspot....

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by: transgenmom @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 12:11:01 PM UTC

Is Kennedy really this clueless? ... (4.00 / 1)

Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the high court's swing vote, but a firm opponent of many campaign restrictions, at one point told the government's lawyer, "Corporations have lots of knowledge about environment, transportation issues, and you are silencing them during the election."

They aren't being silenced.  No one is silencing the CEO's.  I see Jack Welch(for example) on the TV all the time.  What does Kennedy think there are lobbyists for?  The dude needs to get out more.

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by: Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 13:05:28 PM UTC

The way they talk during oral arguments (4.00 / 2)

is a poor indicator of how they will vote.  They are often forcing the lawyers to make arguments that they plan to use when writing decisions or deliberating.  Just because a justice was critical and aggressive during oral arguments does not mean that justice is necessarily going to decide one way or the other.  

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by: Valatan @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 13:30:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

this would actually not be bad (0.00 / 0)

because it states that it would allow corporations and unions.  everyone knows that corporations already get around this issue anyways but unions have a lot more regulatory restrictions.  This would actually open up union donations as well, as other agencies like moveon, etc.  

I would think that the republicans would actually be against this rather than for it.

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by: RR @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 13:35:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This could backfire on corporations (0.00 / 0)

Frankly, I see the allowing of corporations to give cash directly is a big break for our side. Currently voters don't see the connections between these PACs with fancy names, but they will see the corporations that are funding their politician. I don't see the money increasing, I see better disclosure. I see the public getting madder faster, and greater pressure for optional public funding of campaigns.

Jack Lohman
http://MoneyedPoliticians.net

Jack Lohman

http://MoneyedPoliticians.net

http://SinglePayer.info

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by: jlohman @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 13:38:00 PM UTC

Only if they don't overturn disclosure laws, too (0.00 / 0)

which was what the original suit was about.  

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by: Valatan @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 13:42:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

No countervailing power (4.00 / 1)

We already have unlimited corporate donations to political parties in Texas.

Pimp-consultants love it.
Both party establishments love it.
Perpetual incumbents -- parties unto themselves -- love it.

And, I hear you saying that the Life Peers on SCOTUS will shortly love it, too.

"Grass-roots activists" and "party loyalists" hate it.

But, real persons count for little in either party unless they are personally very wealthy or unless they are being used en masse as cheap labor by mercenary pimp-consultants or as iconic props by astro-turf lobbyists.

Supposedly, the corporate money is for party-building and not for campaign-finance. But, that is easily evaded by simple money-laundering techniques such as offsets. These exploit the elementary fact that neither party keeps a complete set of books or actually follow Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised.

Instead, both party establishments emulate the rotten legislatures they are a claque for and file reports that comply with ethics laws. BFD!

The problem is that neither party has a viable business model or any capital at all. They are "special purpose entities" of some sort or just "conduits" of any sort, right out of the bond-lawyer form-book, not self-governing or self-sustaining enteprises at all.

Neither the ideological right nor the traditional left have addressed this problem in much depth. There needs to be a somewhat nerdy "hard center" that does so. That might come out of the blogosphere, but it has not, so far.

Netroots Nation is a politically and intellectually exciting policy-forum. But, it is not a technology trade-show. It is run by wannabe journalistic celebrities and advocrats. From a technology standpoint, they are just a web-centric cargo-cult, not like Comdex, back in the day.

Where was the SharePoint, Drupal, and WordPress "Smackdown!"?

Where were the workshops on the VAN or Catalist.

Debra Bowen was there, but she and the other election drones were mostly just whining about voters as clients, victims, ... whatever, not as political principals.

There was no discussion of claims-based identity -- where particpatory democracy will live or die.

No, corporations are just "a series of tubes", "stove-pipes", empty vessels, really, for self-serving and self-perpetuating elites. They are only "too powerful" because there are no countervailing military-patriotic organs and scarcely any civic-fraternal infrastructure today.

The only politically articulate or influential profession is lawyer.

So, we have neo-clerical rule in accord with neo-liberal doctrines shared by two parties, both of whose establishments have only one paradigm of government: collusive bargaining.

We have few of the foundations of republican democracy, no real parties, no "well regulated militia" even, but lots and lots of meaningless elections, which might as well be auctions, also ... guns, lots of guns!

How do citizens exercise their sovereignty as principals in public life, expressing and upholding "Life, Liberty, Fraternity"?

They buy guns on the hard-right, blog in the limp-middle, and hold candlelight vigils on the passive-left. They have few opportunities to add-value through small contributions to their own lives through political participation and civic fraternization.

But, a century ago, the Labour Party had 400 choirs. And, the comparatively progressive Republican Party still had its "military-wing" -- the Grand Army of the Republic.    

::JRBehrman

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by: JRBehrman0 @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 13:47:42 PM UTC

If this happens, we're done as any kind of Democracy (4.00 / 1)

Money must never equal speech, because that presupposes that some have more speech than others - which is a fundamentally unamerican prospect.

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by: Helzapoppin @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 13:52:59 PM UTC

Before corporations are treated like people (4.00 / 4)

and given the same rights as citizens, I demand to see their birth certificate.

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

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by: SpitBall @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 14:07:39 PM UTC

Pre-revolutionary conditions (4.00 / 1)

A good Leninist would say that the upcoming Supreme Court vote will at least clarify matters, and make it much more difficult to ignore the obvious - a boon to organizers, in other words.

Somehow, I doubt it. The industrial working class, concentrated in cities, didn't just gave the 19th century left a ready base for its organizing efforts; it was also a genuine threat to the source of the oligarchs' power. (JRBehrman's 400 choirs is an apt metric.) Sadly, today's oligarchy doesn't need a working class, except as a reservoir for the thugs it recruits to do its dirty work.

This somewhat limits our options, no matter how pissed off people get. I'm afraid that we need a new constituency as well as new thinking. (Many people here are doing the thinking, but when it comes to the constituencies, it's hard to foresee a unifying identity which is likely to be anywhere near as strong as the industrial working class once was.)

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by: William Timberman @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 14:19:14 PM UTC

At least its working class need not be on... (0.00 / 0)

any one continent. Great point.

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by: leolabeth @ Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 10:31:31 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

How do we stop this? (0.00 / 0)

There's got to be some precedent, some argument, that even the most right-wing Supreme (Kangaroo) Court injustices are loathe to overturn.  What are they, and what can we do to ensure that they are heard?

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by: Michael Kwiatkowski @ Thu Sep 10, 2009 at 20:07:54 PM UTC

If the Court guts limits on (4.00 / 1)

corporate spending, the only response is to ensure free air time and public funding.  

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

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by: David Kaib @ Fri Sep 11, 2009 at 00:22:01 AM UTC