Citizens United Background

In order to understand the implications of the Citizens United Supreme Court Decision, we must first learn about the previous events that lead to this debate. In 1907, the Tillman Act prohibited monetary contributions from Corporations to political campaigns. In order to get around this, companies utilized expenditures; an expenditure is a payment of cash for goods or services. One could run an advertisement that says a specific candidate “sucks” and count it as a campaign expenditure because it does not specifically tell someone to vote or not vote for such a candidate. Many years later John McCain and Russ Feingold attempted to close this loophole. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, otherwise known as the McCain and Feingold Act, implemented regulations that corporations can’t mention candidates in any broadcast advertisement within sixty days of a general election and thirty days within a primary. Immediately after this ruling, there was backlash and frustration from special interest groups. In direct response and as somewhat of a counter-protest the NRA created NRA news. Many years later during the 2008 election, citizens united created “Hillary: The Movie”. This movie openly criticized and hindered Clinton’s campaign. The creators deliberately took for-profit money to fund this movie which essentially was an ad against Clinton. This acted in direct conflict against past regulations and was an attempt to get rid of campaign finance laws through a supreme court ruling. The Citizens United vs Federal Elections of 2010 argued that campaign finance laws are unconstitutional because they limit free speech. In the ruling, the decision was that Corporations like individuals have a first amendment right to spend independently and it would be unconstitutional to limit this. Additionally, Corporations have constitutional protections when they make independent expenditures for a campaign.