1 / 13

Citizens United Decision and Political Inequality

Citizens United Decision and Political Inequality. Jan Saxhaug and Mariyam Naadha. Agenda . Citizens United vs. FEC Pros vs Cons Outside Spending since Citizens United Impact on Interest Groups What does this mean for the marginalized? . Citizen's United vs. FEC.

shae
Download Presentation

Citizens United Decision and Political Inequality

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Citizens UnitedDecision and Political Inequality Jan Saxhaug and Mariyam Naadha

  2. Agenda • Citizens United vs. FEC • Pros vs Cons • Outside Spending since Citizens United • Impact on Interest Groups • What does this mean for the marginalized?

  3. Citizen's United vs. FEC • 5-4 decision overturning key provisions of the BCRA (2002) • Political spending is form of protected speech– government restrictions are unconstitutional. • Allows corporations to spend treasury funds on election advocacy directly or through an outside group • Corporations can donateto 501 (c) (4) and (c) (6)non-profitswhich can run election ads without revealing corporate donors

  4. Mitt is right, Corporations are people too! • Victory for the 1st Amendment! • Small entities like non-profits affected too. • Why are media corporations any different? • Citizens United doesn't change much • Many corporations aren't eager to jump into political realm anyway.

  5. But, it's not fair! Dissent: Justice Stevens • Legal entities- not “We the People” • Influence electoral process • President Obama- “undermines the influence of Americans who makes small contributions” • Lobbyist threat-advertising against re-election Source:www.nancho.net

  6. Citizens United Decision- Opinion Polls Source: Gallup 2010

  7. Citizens United- Opinion Polls Source: Gallup 2010

  8. Independent Expenditure- Since Citizens United Source: Center for Responsive Politics

  9. Independent Expenditure Presidential Elections 1992 - Present 1992 - 1.5 million 2000 - 2.6 million 2004 - 14 million 2008 - 37.5 million 2012- 88 Million- 234% of 2008 and 628 % of 2004

  10. Independent Expenditure- Citizens United • Since 2006- groups that do not disclose their donors- increased from 1% to 47% • 501 c non-profit spending increased from 0% to 42 % (total spending by outside groups) • Outside interest groups spent more on election seasons political advertising than party committees-first time in 20 years. • Amount of independent expenditure and electioneering communication by outside groups-quadrupled since 2006. • 72% of political advertising spending in 2010-sources that were prohibited from spending money in 2006.

  11. How has Citizens United affected Political Representation? Bartels argues that that politicians pay greater attention to high-income constituents. Verba discusses the right to participate vs. the capacity to participate. Cigler and Loomis argue that well funded special interests force the government to respond to their demands at the expense of the "collective needs of society.” Strolovitch's argument is that social welfare organizations often focus on the need of the advantaged subgroups because they have the resources.

  12. Discussion Should corporations and unions be allowed to usemoney from their generalfunds to makeindependent advertisements in support of or inopposition topolitical candidates? And, what does it mean for political representation of the marginalized?

  13. Sources: Syllabus. Supreme Court Of the United States. CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION Kirpatrick, D. “Lobbyists Get Potent Weapon in Campaign Financing” New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22donate.html Hasen, R. “The Numbers don’t lie” Slate magazine. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/03/the_supreme_court_s_citizens_united_decision_has_led_to_an_explosion_of_campaign_spending_.html Bartels, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. (2008) Chapter 9 Strolovitch, “Do Interest Groups Represent the Disadvantaged?” (2006) Gallup Politics. “Public Agree with Court: Campaign Money is Free Speech” (2010) http://www.gallup.com/poll/125333/public-agrees-court-campaign-money-free-speech.aspx

More Related