Griffin

Oswald
11 November 2016
UWRT 1103

Defense Paper

In 2010 the United States supreme court made a decision that has changed American
politics drastically and has threaten the very fabric of democracy, and the scariest part? Over
60% of Americans are unaware of the decision or dont understand it. (Huskerson, 2014) The
decision was on Citizens United v. FEC, and the supreme court in a 5-4 decision decided that it is
acceptable for corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want to convince
people to vote for or against a candidate as long as the money doesnt go to that candidate
directly. The supreme court saw this as an extension of freedom of speech, and as John Dunbar,
a political analyst, put it "Spending is speech, and is therefore protected by the Constitution
even if the speaker is a corporation."(Dunbar, 2016) It was through this decision that the Super
PAC was born. (Wertheimer, 2015)
To better understand just how much Super PACs have changed and corrupted American
politics it is important to know that an individual can only give up to $2,600 to any individual
candidate and these donations are closely regulated by the Federal Elections Commissions.
(Huskerson, 2014) But now any corporation or individual can now donated as much as they
want to a Super PAC that supports their candidate of choice. Now this fact alone may not seem
like that big of a deal, until you look at the size of these donations. Thomas Steyer gave a
donation of $66,294,744 to a Super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton, and Sheldon Adelson and his
wife gave over $42,700,000 to a Super PAC supporting Donald Trump and these are only 2
examples out of hundreds. (Open Secrets, 2016) Over 1.5 billion dollars has been raised by
Super PACs this year alone, and only 1% of individual donors have contributed over 25% of all

Griffin Oswald
11 November 2016
UWRT 1103


money raised. (Open Secrets, 2016) This becomes a bigger problem when elected officials are
more obligated to listen to their biggest donors that helped get them elected than the citizens
they are supposed to represent. There was a recent study done that showed lawmakers were
more likely to meet with their biggest donors instead of their constituents. (Terkel, 2014) And
another issue with this is how closely this mirrors the robber baron era (or gilded age politics) in
America during the early 1900s. What happened during the robber baron era was campaign
donations became completely unregulated and because of this politicians would give their
biggest donors seats in their cabinet or other positions of power. And because upper class
America was getting positions of power because of the money they were donating, the middle
and lower class voters were not being heard or outright suppressed. (Loomis, 2012) One of the
biggest signs of this becoming a real issue in modern times is Donald Trumps proposed cabinet
members, many of which are billionaire CEOs with very little political backgrounds, like Steven
Mnuchin the former Goldman Sachs executive who is Trumps proposed Treasury Secretary.
(Terkel, 2016)
A lot of thought and effort has already been put forth to try and fix these problems
made by the Citizens United decision. The fastest way to fix this issue is to have the supreme
court completely overturn the decisions made in the case, and with one new justice already
appointed by Obama and at least two more seats opening up soon, this may be a possible
solution. But what is more probable is fixing campaign reform on a state by state level first, just
like gay marriage legalization, marijuana legalization, and gun reform. Campaign reform is
already starting to happen in Maine, Connecticut, Arizona, Seattle, and New York City by the

Griffin Oswald
11 November 2016
UWRT 1103


voters in those states voting on smaller bills proposed by lobbyist in those states. The federal
government is much more likely to listen to voters in individual states if this trend keeps
occurring, and with both of the main candidates in this presidential election being procampaign reform this may be a very likely solution to such a big problem. (Cole, 2016)
With all my research and the fact that so few of the American public know about the
corruption caused by Super PACs I have decided to create an interactive piece to represent this
problem to the voting public. I have constructed a fake ballot box that will be placed outside
voting centers. These ballot boxes will be duplicated and will be displayed at polling centers all
over the United States. This is a good location to run this interactive exhibit since voters are the
ones who can make a difference, and more knowledge about the issue of campaign donations
will allow voters to make a more informed decision about who they elect, as certain candidates
are more likely to try and overturn citizens united or appoint judges who will. The ballot box
will look like a normal ballot box on the outside, but will have flashy colors and graphics to
attract people to it. But once you open up the ballot box it is filled with money and the names
of the biggest donors in this recent election instead of normal votes. It will also contain
information about Super PACs and Citizens United to better inform voters on this issue. The
purpose of this piece is to expose voters to this problem and to demonstrated that as long as
the Citizens United decision and Super PACs exist you do not have a voice.

Griffin Oswald
11 November 2016
UWRT 1103



WORK CITED:

Huskerson, Tom. 60% Of Americans Don't Understand What Super PACs Are . IVNus, Ivn.us,
14 Feb. 2014, ivn.us/2014/02/14/60-americans-say-dont-understand-super-pacs/.

Dunbar, John. "The 'Citizens United' Decision and Why It Matters." Center for Public Integrity.
N.p., 14 Mar. 2016. Web. 29 Sept. 2016.
<https://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/18/11527/citizens-united-decision-and-why-itmatters>.

Open Secrets . The Center for Responsive Politics. Opensecrets RSS, 1 Feb. 2016,
www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?disp=d.

Open Secrets . The Center for Responsive Politics. Opensecrets RSS, 1 Jan. 2016,
www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/donor_stats.php?cycle=2016&type=i.

Terkel, Amanda. Lawmakers More Likely To Meet With Campaign Donors Than Constituents,
New Study Finds. The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 5 Nov. 2014,
www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/11/campaign-donations-access_n_4941357.html.

Terkel, Amanda. "Donald Trumps Proposed Cabinet Would Bring Some Fringe Figures In From
The Cold." Donald Trumps Proposed Cabinet Would Bring Some Fringe Figures In From The
Cold. N.p., 11 Nov. 2016. Web. 14 Nov. 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donaldtrump-administration-cabinet_us_58249c70e4b01019814da7f9>.

Loomis / AlterNet, Erik. "8 Ways America's Headed Back to the Robber-Baron Era." Alternet.
N.p., 2 July 2012. Web. 29 Sept. 2016.
<http://www.alternet.org/story/156111/8_ways_america%27s_headed_back_to_the_robberbaron_era/>.

Cole, David. "How to Reverse Citizens United." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 1 Apr.
2016. Web. 04 Oct. 2016. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/how-toreverse-citizens-united/471504/>.

Wertheimer, Fred. "Super PACs a Disaster for Democracy." CNN. Cable News Network, 15 Feb.
2015. Web. 01 Oct. 2016. <http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/15/opinion/wertheimer-superpacs/index.html>. .