Citizens United Ramifications

The debate around the Citizens United decision is hotly contested. People in support of the decision argue that if Citizens United was not passed then Fox News, MSNBC and other organizations would be in jeopardy because they can be interpreted as supporting candidates within an election. They also worry that the government would be able to limit anything that involves a corporation speaking about a candidate for office. Their basic argument is that one can not limit speech just because they are incorporated since being incorporated is simply labeling a group. On the other hand, groups against Citizens United point out that the press serves an educational purpose which is different from corporations and is therefore permissible because there are separate protections for the press. Therefore, the proponents of Citizens United main argument is based off a fallacy. The best example to counteract Citizens United is when a Canadian law student on a work visa wanted to go to Kinkos and make flyers that said, “re-elect President Obama”, was denied. Due to his lack of citizenship, he was violating federal law as he was “engaging in election-related activity as a non-citizen”. So if the main premise of Citizens United is that the labeling of the group does not matter and that corporations have freedom of speech, why is it that an average man can not disseminate similar information? This conflict insinuates that non-human entities have more first amendment rights than certain human beings. Rather, the identity of a speaker matters if the speaker is foreign. This creates a high level of hypocrisy because we are giving more rights to corporations than to actual people. The main frustration with the Citizens United ruling is that it enables large corporations to spend millions of dollars to influence an election. This is an extremely urgent issue as it has redistributed the level of influence that the general population has. Specifically, candidates begin to represent their donors much more than their constituents. Simply because their donors expect a return on their investment. These large corporations donate to specific campaign because they expect the candidate to vote in their favor on specific issues. Overall, there are strong arguments on both sides of the Citizens United decision. However, there are serious implications with current campaign financing and the level of influence corporations have in government decisions.