Citizens United and Foreign Corporations

Joe Conason has a piece in Salon that says the Supreme Court has ‘opened the floodgates’ to foreign donations influencing our elections.

Ginsburg pressed further. “Nowadays there are foreign interests, even foreign governments, that own not one share but a goodly number of shares.” To which Olson answered, “I submit that the Court’s decisions in connection with the First Amendment and corporations have in the past made no such distinction.”

None other than Alito himself piped up to affirm the same point moments later.

“Well, Mr. Olson,” he asked, “do you think that media corporations that are owned or principally owned by foreign shareholders have less First Amendment rights than other media corporations in the United States?” Replied Olson, “I don’t think so, Justice Alito, and certainly there is no record to suggest that there is any kind of problem based upon that.”

No problem with foreign-owned media corporations publishing and broadcasting in the United States, perhaps — although some critics have wondered from time to time whether the Washington Times and the Unification Church were acting as instruments of a foreign power. But if foreign-owned corporations possess fully the same rights as citizens to participate in elections under the majority decision — as Olson and Alito indicated — then we could face a serious problem indeed.

Several years ago, you may recall, The Guardian mounted an email campaign to influence voters in important Ohio districts, and one of their authors even wrote a piece claiming that since the US was so influential that non-citizens ought to have some kind of say on the course of the elections. I don’t recall Conason being outraged by that, but perhaps my memory fails me. And there’s really no point in bringing up Obama’s website campaign contributions, which attracted no FEC curiosity.

The key takeaway is this, though:

Although the scope of the latest problem created by the court may be a matter of speculation, there is no doubt that unbridled corporate contributions will open the way for foreign interests and individuals to intervene in U.S. politics — so long as their money is laundered through a company incorporated in this country.

[Emphasis mine] At the time that McCain-Feingold was signed into law, there were many legal observers who opined that it wouldn’t pass constitutional muster. It seems that foreign donations can easily be laundered through a campaign website, as the law is presently not enforced in any meaningful way, and the role of the New York Fed and Mr. Geithner in bailing out AIG, and through AIG Goldman Sachs, is also troubling. Indeed, though I am personally an advocate of nuclear energy, it’s troubling that GE, which owns NBC, expresses such delight at Obama’s SOTU call for more nuclear plants. But the key thing here is to note that Conason pins the trouble-maker label on the Court, which is simply attempting to uphold the Constitution. And, as is typical in such pieces, Conason doesn’t address at all the side-effects of McCain-Feingold that militate against a very reasonable assertion of political free speech, such as Hillary: The Movie, on one hand, while permitting Michael Moore full rein. The Supremes did not create the problem.

I think that it’s essential that we do have legislation that will prevent foreign corporate and individual influence in our elections. Indeed, I think that it’s important to have laws in place designed to establish that a person’s a citizen before they cast their vote. And it’s ludicrous to hear this argument from the left when the Democrats are about to push for amnesty and voting rights for what, since we can’t call them illegal immigrants, we might term “aspirational Americans.” Nevertheless, McCain-Feingold was not and is not the lawful means by which to prevent such outside influence. And any legislation that seeks strictly to limit such influence must also provide greater regulation of shell-corporation gaming by 527s and other advocacy organizations, who find means to funnel money to campaigns via money-laundering mechanisms of their own. Otherwise, it’s all posturing, Joe.