Rid Ourselves of “Citizens United”

How We Get Rid of “Citizens United,” Robert Reich

This week’s video is important. It shows a clear path to getting rid of the Supreme Court’s horrific 2010 decision Citizens United vs. Federal Election Committee.

That decision opened the floodgates to campaign spending by giant corporations. The high court reasoned that corporations are people who have First Amendment rights to free speech, and that corporate spending on elections is a form of free speech.

But the Supreme Court never got to the more fundamental question of corporate power, because since the early twentieth century states haven’t limited corporate powers to do much of anything.

Yet corporations are creatures of state law. States create and define corporations. Whatever powers corporations have come from state decisions to grant them those powers.

This principle is embodied in an 1819 opinion by Chief Justice John Marshall declaring that a corporation “possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it.”

It wasn’t until the early 20th century that states began to give corporations all the powers human beings have. But states don’t have to do that. States can decide to give them the powers they need to do their business, but not the power to spend money on elections.

This isn’t about corporate rights. It’s about the more basic question of corporate  powers. If a corporation doesn’t have the power to do something in the first place, it obviously doesn’t have any right to do it. Without the power to do it, a corporation  cannot do it. The state has not empowered it to do it.

Montanans will be voting next fall on whether Montana should remove from corporations doing business in Montana the power to spend money on elections.

Hopefully, their answer will be yes. There’s absolutely no reason why states should grant corporations this power.

So far, lawmakers in 9 other states have introduced bills mirroring the Montana plan. Proposals are active in California, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Rhode Island, Washington state, and Hawaii, where a version has already cleared one chamber.

Here’s more information on the Montana plan.

Please push your state to follow Montana’s lead. Organize and mobilize. Share and use this video — so we can get rid of “Citizens United” for good.

How We Get Rid of “Citizens United,” Robert Reich