Supreme Court Campaign for Corporations

It’s not that I’ve grown cynical as I’ve aged as much as it is a growing mistrust of people in power, politicians in particularly. Apparently I’m not alone. The approval rating given Congress by Americans is 18%, a bit lower than the 19% a year ago but a big decline from 24% in January. The clearest picture of how Americans feel about their public servants is the 78% disapproval rating of Congress, which ties the all-time high figure in March 1992.

According to the Gallup poll taken February 1-3, the largest change is among Democrats, whose approval dived from 45% in January to 30% this month. The change in attitude of the American public came after the President’s State of the Union address a week prior when he chastised Democrats, namely Senators, for not fulfilling their task of passing health care reform legislation, and blaming Republicans for blocking new initiatives without offering credible alternatives.

Yet, the approval rating among Republicans inched upward from 10% to 11%.
The results of a Rasmussen Reports poll from September 7 through September 13, 2009, revealed 70% of voters trust the American people more than they do political leaders. It follows suite that 68% view the federal government as a special interest group in itself and that the government and big business work in ways that hurt consumers.

Only 4% of Americans expressed support of the Political Class, the definition of which Rasmussen gives to “that small group of elites and its ardent supporters, the ones who try to brand themselves as populists but are in fact concerned primarily with the goodness of their own power and authority”.

A poll conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion found that 65% of the people surveyed disagreed with the Supreme Court's slim, but oh so decisive and predictably divisive, 5-4 vote in favor of Citizens United vs FEC – Democrats 67%, Republicans 63% and 72% among Independents – while 44% strongly disagreed. Only 17% agreed with the ruling.

In the online survey of 1,003 American adults, 32% of Americans said they have followed this story moderately or very closely. The 68% who haven’t followed it ‘closely or not at all’ are the ignorant majority, the perfect candidates to be overly influenced by whatever tactics wrought by indirect campaign financing toward the election/re-election of candidates who will be indebted for their political victories.

On the one hand, 45% of respondents agree that corporations should have the right to express themselves about political candidates and issues up until Election Day. On the other hand, 42% disagree. The 13% who had no opinion could make it a flip of the coin.

Respondents are also in favor of legislation that would regulate how corporations can spend in political advertising, such as requiring the approval of a majority of shareholders before a corporation can run political ads (74%), requiring the chief executive of the corporation to appear at the end of the ad so the public knows who is behind it (75%), and limiting the ad-spending of corporations that have received federal bailout money or awarded federal contracts (75%).

It’s much too easy for opposite sides of the controversy to make claims that Our Founding Fathers would be [proud of/aghast at] the Supreme Court decision. At that time in American history, electricity was just a kite-flying phenomenon of Brother Franklin, the telephone Bell wouldn’t ring for another hundred years and computers wouldn’t become a household necessity for another hundred years. They could not have foreseen how high-speed Internet service would virtually pop out of nowhere to bring the world together in ways unimaginable.

No speculative commentary can justly conjure up how the crafters of the Constitution would view the Citizens United Supreme Court decision anymore than political pundits of today can predict what the future holds for America with the droves of money that will serve as carrot sticks dangling before the eyes of political hopefuls.

The best that we voters can hope for is that corporations will take responsible steps to reign in government spending, offer fair and constructive solutions to pay down the national debt and dissuade members of Congress from earmarking funds that serve their constituents well but do little good for the nation as a whole.

I fear that corporations will manipulate the legislative process to enhance their profiteering at the expense of American taxpayers, thus worsening with economic indulgences that will forever keep Americans indentured servants to interests other than their own.

Will the voting power of the people overcome the influx of corporate campaign financing in the coming elections? Or will we stare blindly at politicians as they read from teleprompters with words construed with interests that may not be of their preference but out of sheer necessity? Time alone won’t tell. Money will play a large part.