Citizens United

Citizens United v. FEC - Wikipedia. It was argued in 2009 and decided in 2010. The Court held that the free speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political communications by corporations, including nonprofit corporations, labor unions, and other associations.

The case arose after Citizens United, a conservative non-profit organization, sought to air and advertise a film critical of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shortly before the 2008 Democratic primary elections. This would have been a violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which prohibited any corporation or labor union from making an "electioneering communication" within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of an election, or making any expenditure advocating the election or defeat of a candidate at any time.

In his dissenting opinion, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens argued that the Court's ruling represented "a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government

Section 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (known as BCRA or McCain–Feingold Act) modified the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, 2 U.S.C. § 441b to prohibit corporations and unions from using their general treasury to fund "electioneering communications" (broadcast advertisements mentioning a candidate in any context) within 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a general election

Because spending money is essential to disseminating speech, as established in Buckley v. Valeo, limiting a corporation's ability to spend money is unconstitutional because it limits the ability of its members to associate effectively and to speak on political issues.

It’s time for liberals to get over Citizens United

From the moment the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. FEC came down, it scandalized liberals.

In 2017, a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission resigned, claiming “since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, our political campaigns have been awash in unlimited, often dark money.”

Most widespread in liberal circles is the idea that Citizens opened the floodgates to massive amounts of corporate spending in politics. But as many legal scholars have argued, the floodgates were already open. Citizens is not responsible for the massive amounts of money showered on favored candidates. Nor is it responsible for the rise of so-called dark money in politics. Citizens didn’t upend our campaign finance system. It was a logical next step, given past court decisions.

facilitated by the 1976 decision Buckley v. Valeo.

Our inability to trace campaign donations to their source — the dark money issue — is the result of the lack of federal regulations to make disclosure mandatory. And such regulations are legal.

In 2010, Republican senators defeated a disclosure law 59 to 39, which would have made it more difficult for donors to use legal loopholes to hide their identities