A group of House Democrats introduced a constitutional amendment on Thursday to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that eliminated restrictions on corporate campaign spending. The Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in the Citizens United v. FEC case prohibited the government from restricting political campaign spending by companies, nonprofit organizations and unions. This amendment, if passed, would allow Congress and state governments to enact “reasonable, viewpoint-neutral” limitations on campaign funding, including restricting corporations from spending “unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.”
Be Prepared To Defend Political Advertising
With elections looming in 2018 that look to generate lots of political advertising, broadcasters should be well versed in defending the current state of political fundraising and spending, particularly the newly won right of corporations and other associations to spend unlimited amounts in support of their causes and candidates.
Scalia’s Death May Alter Campaign Spending
UC Irvine professor Richard L. Hasen: “The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will have important ramifications on national issues from abortion to affirmative action to climate change to gun rights. But first and foremost, the decision [on Scalia’s replacement] could bring an end, at least for a time, to one of the country’s most hated decisions, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Maybe, at least for a while, the courts will stop our elections from becoming increasingly bankrolled by the super-wealthy.”
The states, led by New York, are asking the Supreme Court to preserve Montana’s state-level regulations on corporate political expenditures. Virginia-based American Tradition Partnership is asking the nation’s high court to rule without a hearing because the group says the state law conflicts directly with the Citizens United decision that removed the federal ban on corporate campaign spending.
