Chapter Nine Discussion

No unread replies.No replies.

The discussion below is intended to make you think about your own opinions. There are no "right" or "wrong" answers. Rather, you need to read this information and then defend your answer.

1. Should the First Amendment protect corporate political expression? If not, where should the line be drawn for corporations between freedom and restrictions?

Corporate political speech is restricted. Corporations can support candidates and causes through political action committees and, since Citizens United, with independent expenditures. They cannot contribute to candidates directly, a major restriction of their speech.

The arguments for restricting corporate speech begin with the charge that corporations have wealth that could corrupt or strike fear into politicians, undermining the integrity of their decisions. Their "speech" could drown out other voices. For more than 100 years Congress has legislated to restrict corporate speech. Federal courts have generally supported this policy. Corporations are not natural persons. They are not flesh and blood voters. They have no conscience. Their sole interest is in making profits. Also, the Founders never intended the First Amendment to protect corporations. They were suspicious of them and greatly restricted their activities.

The counter argument is that corporate speech is entitled to the fullest First Amendment protection. A corporation is a voluntary association of individuals and as such should be entitled to political speech just as a political party or an interest group composed of farmers or workers. The Founders never intended that the government should balance voices of competing interests. To do so it must be a censor, which is inappropriate. Indeed, James Madison in the Federalist No. 10 wrote: "It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust . . . clashing interests and render them all subservient to the public good."¹ For Madison, the remedy for an interest that would trample on the rights of others is a republican government in which all factions are given free voice. The citizen body is not easily duped. If corporations spend large amounts of money this will be revealed and voters will take it into consideration.

There is a perennial argument about whether corporations should have the same First Amendment or other constitutional rights as ordinary citizens. In the 1886 Santa Clara case, the Supreme Court accepted the theory that corporations were "persons" under the law entitled to the same Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights as natural citizens.² Since then this conclusion has held, but it is politically charged because the "personhood" of the corporation shields it from some government regulation. Leftists, who believe in more regulation, dislike this shield. Conservatives, who seek more corporate freedom, approve of it.

You would join the dissenters if, overall, you believe that corporations are "persons" entitled to full First Amendment speech protections, that historical evidence of corporations corrupting elections is thin, that government should not censor political speech, and that the body of campaign finance law has grown too complex and is in itself a barrier to constitutional free speech.

2. Should First Amendment protections apply only to individual citizens?

Be sure to also interact with two fellow students by replying to their posts with rational, polite answers.