In his State of the Union address, President Obama called for a “better politics,” where both parties enlist Americans in building up the nation, not, as he put it, “drowning in dark money for ads that pull us in the gutter.”
That was his only reference to the Citizens United ruling, the U. S. Supreme Court’s decision lifting restrictions on business funding in elections. However, he added the next day that “The Citizens United decision was wrong and it has caused real harm to our democracy.” To the President, the Court’s action empowered special interests over ordinary citizens.
Many agree, including a candidate for Bloomington mayor, who has announced he would not take corporate contributions and challenged his opponents to do likewise.
But five years after the Supreme Court spoke, finding evidence that business dollars have harmed American politics is not easy. This is partly because special interests do not speak with one voice. Groups and individuals favoring more liberal causes have shown they can take as much advantage of the new rules as those supporting more conservative ones.
Elections are now more costly than ever, but not by a lot. In 2006, before Citizens United, we spent 2.9 billion dollars to elect Congress. Adjusted for inflation, the bill last year came to 3.4 billion dollars, a 2 percent annual increase.
In any case, since much of the corporate money goes to issue-oriented groups, not to candidates, refusing it is mostly an empty gesture.
But since these groups are often single-minded about their cause, what such money can do is inject more debate and vigor into our election campaigns. Isn’t that what “better politics” needs, especially here in Bloomington?
Sources
President’s State of the Union address
Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)
“John Hamilton promises to not accept funds from corporations,” The Herald-Times, January 22, 2015.
Cost of 2014 election
Cost of 2006 election
