Why Regulate Corporate Contributions?

Nothing in the First Amendment prevents us, as a political community, from making certain modest but important changes in the kind of process we want for selecting our political leaders *T+o move closer to the kind of community process that lies at the heart of the First Amendment conceptiona process wherein ideas and candidates prevail because of their inherent worth for nothing in the First Amendment commits us to the dogma that money is speech. (Wright p. 1005)

This week my reading response examines: why corporate contributions should be regulated and whether First National Bank of Boston was correctly decided. Wrights passage above frames my writing because it is perhaps the most poignant answer to Justice Thomass unassailable proposition that Political speech is the primary object of First Amendment protection. (Nixon, dissenting) While I understand that one key issue in this debate is the difficulties in line-drawing and defining contributions, expenditures, and soft-money, I set that aside in this paper. Instead I focus on the premise that the better primary backdrop for campaign finance is that the First Amendment as a constitutional safeguard better ensures a process where the best ideas and candidates prevails (free from corporate influence), Justice Whites dissent in First National naturally follows. And refute the other prevailing backdrop of a First Amendment that protects all free speech and in its most uncomplicated terms, money = speech. Upfront, I should note that I think two of the four assumptions Smith finds faulty (1. too much money is spent on campaigns, and 2. that money is corrupting) are valid assumptions and that my analysis draws upon them. In First National, White writes in dissent that corporate expenditures may be viewed as seriously threatening the role of the First Amendment as a guarantor of a free marketplace of ideas. Too much money is spent on campaigns when discussed in relative terms (Smiths yogurt consumption v. political contributions point) begs the question of whats minimum? But, as an initial matter, the theoretical view is much like a point made in class two weeks ago. When discussing partisan

gerrymandering, we touched upon the concept of wasted votes i.e. only one vote over 50% is required to reflect the majoritys will, and everything excess was a wasted vote. Where districts were overwhelmingly democratic or republican, there were wasted votes. To analogize in the campaign finance context, theres likely some level of campaign finance that ensures a free marketplace of ideas, which is the process whereby the best ideas and candidates prevail. Any dollar spent over this limit is too much, and these wasted dollars could be better spent somewhere else. Especially in light of electronic communications (emails, YouTube, Twitter, etc.), more and more exclusively news channels, and effectiveness of grassroots movements like the Tea Party and Occupy Wall St., there are likely more cost-effective ways for political candidates to convey their message. This is particularly true if, as last classs discussions emphasizes, that political party is an effective and cheap proxy for voters. And assuming that money does corrupt, then corporate contributions and expenditures should be heavily regulated because its influence will compromise the electoral processand were wasting resources on the process that could be better spent elsewhere. Corporations, as legal entities and legal fiction, have their own agendaat times against the best interest of its corporate constituents. But large shareholders, directors, and key management are not usually left without resources to push their self-interest politically. It thus seems strange that these actors would be given additional resources and power to affect the political process, separate from their own personal resources. For me what is particularly disconcerting is that corporations are meant to maximize their profits, and perhaps by securing their market power. One path to maximize profits and secure market power is by affecting the political process. Whats troubling then is that each dollar of campaign donations may net more than a dollar of profits or market power, thus it is in the corporations self-interest as an entity to donate politically, but not necessarily for policy in its long-term interest or for the benefit of the political community.

This can pervert not only the political process, but the corporations mission as well. One clear example is the Detroit auto industry. Certainly unions, key executives, and directors of the former Detroit Big Three (currently sort of big Detroit Two) auto companies could wield political influence that would benefit their corporations using their own resources, yet permitting corporations to make political contributions could only ensure a number of corporate and regulatory benefits that could offend the serious and genuine exchange of political ideas. This process can continue until the market place no longer votes for the corporations product, and instead chooses a competitors product, and this can be a traumatic collapse as weve witnessed recently; but also it leads to a political market and economic market distortion along the way that takes us further from the aims a democratic process that hopes to ensure that the best politicians and ideas prevail.