Sam,

Two comments. First, whether or not this is a "legislation-worthy problem," my main goal was merely articulating what I consider to be a significant and necessary consequence of the ruling. If we're going to fully consider the implications of the decision - I think that was Nate's original goal - we should consider the indirect implications of the ruling as well.

Just the same, though, you bring up a good point - one that definitely deserves some discussion.

You mention paternalistic implications of controlling corporate campaign finance. I think that using the term paternalism here is a bit of an unfair rhetorical device if you're using it as I understand you to be using it. I think of paternalism as being when an entity with power restricts or forces the behavior of an entity with less power, usually with the justification that the restriction or force is for the lesser power’s best interest. By "paternalistic implications” I'm assuming, then, that you mean you're objecting to the notion that the government can restrict how a corporation spends money to advertise for political candidates, thus making a decision about how a corporation spends its money and therefore how it exercises its "speech."

I might argue, however, that another interpretation of what the government is doing through the now-defunct attempts to limit corporate campaign finance is preventing corporations from acting in a paternalistic way themselves towards the public. By using their vast treasuries to saturate the market with direct candidate supporting advertising, corporations could be said to be the ones who are truly restricting the liberty of choice on behalf of the people. The government isn’t the only body that can exert its greater power over a mass of those with less power, is it?

I also have a few other smaller comments to make here. You mentioned that political contributions are all open and documented, and thus that anyone can find out what causes companies support. But isn't this still a problem, because the "company supporting something" is itself a legal fiction? The company doesn't support anything - it's not a person. Ford does not prefer Obama to McCain? or the other way around. The board of directors might, but that's even more uncertainty for voters to consider when they're trying to decide how to spend their money because the corporation's directors will change. Hope you didn't forget to read the Economist before you went to the dealership today. Didn't you hear? Ford's chief operating officer was replaced this morning. The new guy loves universal health care, and will now tip the board of directors towards advertising for the Democratic candidate this time around. Too bad you're happy with your insurance and just bought that Taurus, giving the board another $3500 to fund TV commercials - should have done your homework.

Now, Sam, I’m really not doing your point justice, and for that I apologize. I’m overstating my point for effect. But let’s look at campaign financing using the functional approach – what does this decision DO for elections? It would be tough to dispute that money wins elections, and now small groups of actors in control of corporate treasuries can flood much more money into the process, meaning that these small groups have more sway. I think we’d agree with this, but where I suppose we disagree is what to do from that point. You say preventing this flow is paternalistic. I say that preventing it makes the already filthy political process at least at little cleaner by not allowing corporations and unions as much ability to effect elections.

Believe it or not, I actually agree with the Court’s decision from a doctrinal point of view. If you force me to operate with the premises that corporations are people and that money is speech, then I don’t see how you can restrict a corporation’s ability to directly spend money on campaign ads. But if I sweep the legal fiction aside and think about the direct ramifications of the ruling, then I can’t stand behind it for the reasons I’ve already mentioned.

-- AndrewCascini - 03 Feb 2010