Fight now or pledge allegiance to the United States of Exxon

25th January 2010

Fight now or pledge allegiance to the United States of Exxon

posted in Fat Bias, Legal Issues, Mental Health, Politics, Rachel, Recovery |

An Examined Life will continue this week, but I wanted to bring to your attention a very important matter with political implications for all Americans. Last week the Supreme Court effectively deregulated the American electoral process by striking down a century-old ban against corporate spending directly on political campaigns in federal elections. With that 5-4 decision, the court, in essence, has transformed the highest offices of the land into an auction to be controlled by the likes of Exxon, Big Pharma and Wal-Mart. The ramifications of the decision cannot be overstated. As the New York Times sums up in its excellent editorial:

As a result of Thursday’s ruling, corporations have been unleashed from the longstanding ban against their spending directly on political campaigns and will be free to spend as much money as they want to elect and defeat candidates. If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.

…The majority is deeply wrong on the law. Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights. It is an odd claim since companies are creations of the state that exist to make money. They are given special privileges, including different tax rates, to do just that. It was a fundamental misreading of the Constitution to say that these artificial legal constructs have the same right to spend money on politics as ordinary Americans have to speak out in support of a candidate.

This decision touches upon nearly every facet of Americans’ lives, but in particular for readers here, it has the potential to affect causes near and dear to our hearts. A quick rundown of what may loom in the near future:

Corporations like Johnson & Johnson, who have huge and multiple stakes in the weight-loss industry, have long fought to fight to have obesity classified as a disease, for if obesity is a disease or a mental illness, government and private insurance will be forced to cover products and treatments for its treatment. Groups like the American Obesity Association–which is supported by the pharmaceutical industry and commercial diet-mongers like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and also advocates obesity to be classified as a disease–have gone so far as to argue for “fat taxes” to be leveraged against fat Americans. In 2008, Johnson & Johnson alone posted annual sales of $63.7 billion. If the company directed less than 3 percent of those earnings to political lobbying, they will have spent more than the combined 2008 presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain — which in itself was more than double the amount spent by both candidates in the 2004 election.* With the court’s overturn on corporate electoral spending, how long before corporate interests masquerading in doctor’s smocks are allowed to dictate treatments and taxes that support only their bottom line ?

Proposals have already been made to develop and adopt national standards for company-run “wellness plans” with tax incentives and credits given to companies based on whether or not their employees meet “wellness objectives” such as weight, blood pressure, blood sugar levels and other arbitrary levels of health as defined by people with no otherwise right to peek into your medical file. Corporations, of course, like this proposal because it offers them a relatively inexpensive return on investment — simply adopt a government approved wellness plan and then either not hire or fire those employees who don’t meet the new government health standards. With the court’s overturn on corporate electoral spending, how long before corporations lobby their candidates of choice to make this proposal the law of the land?
Last year, Congress finally passed H.R. 1424, which among other things provides equity in the coverage of mental health and substance use disorders by ensuring that group health care plans do not charge higher co-payments, coinsurance, deductibles, and impose maximum out-of-pocket limits and lower day and visit limits (provided that they offer mental health coverage). The bill is set to take effect this October. With the court’s overturn on corporate electoral spending, how long before Big Health Insurance Corporations lobby Congress to enact laws and amendments that erode at this coverage

In response to the ruling, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fl) has filed five campaign six campaign finance bills to secure the people’s “right to clean government.” The bills have names like the Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act and the Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act. The first slaps a 500 percent excise tax on corporate spending on elections, and the second mandates businesses to disclose their attempts to influence elections. More details are available on the congressman’s Web site. Grayson’s also created an online petition to support these bills moving forward and becoming law. I urge you to lend your support in rescuing democracy.

* The candidates spent a combined $1.7 billion in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, according to Bloomberg.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Fat Bias, Legal Issues, Mental Health, Politics, Rachel, Recovery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On January 25th, 2010, Trabb's Boy said:

The amount of sick this makes me feel is hard to describe. I don’t think Grayson’s bills will do it. I’m not sure there’s any legislative fix at this point. Someone suggested a provision that no corporation with foreign investors could contribute, but since the Supreme Court seems to think corporations are people, and there’s no prohibition on people donating just because some of their income is foreign, I doubt that would work. It needs a constitutional amendment, and there isn’t time before the government becomes way more bought than even currently. The only real hope here is for someone conservative to retire from the bench.

Also, while I appreciate your considering the FA angle, I suspect the death of labor laws, consumer and environmental protection and social programs will pretty much eclipse the rest of it.

Good luck with the fight. I’ve moved to Canada (for utterly non-political reasons), so I no longer have a Representative, but I’m sitting on the sidelines hoping desperately that my cynicism is unjustified.

posted on January 25th, 2010 at 3:38 pm

2 On January 25th, 2010, Rachel said:

Also, while I appreciate your considering the FA angle, I suspect the death of labor laws, consumer and environmental protection and social programs will pretty much eclipse the rest of it.

Sadly, I think you’re very right. I could go on and on, but I wanted to just give some concrete examples off the top of my head of what could happen to issues most pertinent to the blog’s overarching theme.

posted on January 25th, 2010 at 4:18 pm

3 On January 25th, 2010, Rose said:

Tell me how to fight this and I will. I am kind of at a loss of what to do.

posted on January 25th, 2010 at 5:14 pm

4 On January 25th, 2010, Bilt4cmfrt said:

It’s like my brain has been shying away from the reality of this.

How?
Can?
This?
Possibly?
Be?

It’s GOT to be a calculated effect. I mean, we get NO inkling of this and, all of a sudden, it’s a DONE DEAL? Have I been under a rock or am I just not getting something here?
I think I’m gonna need to get over that hump before I can deal with how mind destroyingly F’ed up this whole thing is.

posted on January 25th, 2010 at 6:03 pm

5 On January 26th, 2010, Cute Bruiser said:

Urgh. I have dual citizenship between Canada and the USA and I’ve been in Canada the last five years, but I was planning on moving back to the States in a few months so THIS is not a happy thing. Wondering what good it would do to sign that petition with a Canadian postal code …

posted on January 26th, 2010 at 10:16 am

6 On January 26th, 2010, Rachel said:

Tell me how to fight this and I will. I am kind of at a loss of what to do.

You can start by signing the petition. And then follow-up by writing your representatives and senators urging support for either Grayson’s bills or others to help at least staunch some of the massive bleeding the Supreme Court ruling has wrought.

posted on January 26th, 2010 at 11:02 am

7 On January 26th, 2010, Rachel said:

It’s GOT to be a calculated effect. I mean, we get NO inkling of this and, all of a sudden, it’s a DONE DEAL? Have I been under a rock or am I just not getting something here?

No, unless me and the rest of the country have been also. From what I understand, the court far overreached on this decision — corporate electoral spending wasn’t even the primary issue of the case. Also, they only gave the lawyers on both sides of the argument ONE MONTH to prepare their cases before they heard them. It certainly sounds like there were perhaps some backdoor dealings going on in judge’s quarters here.

posted on January 26th, 2010 at 11:03 am

8 On January 26th, 2010, Fluthor said:

I actually happen to be a lawyer who is a constituent of Rep. Grayson. I find him to be an embarrassment and have thought so not just because of this recent tantrum by him.

I think the case was correctly decided. I have long thought that the restriction was an unconstitutional prior restraint of speech. The New York Times, which is a corporation, fails to mention that it is part of a special class of corporations that have always been exempt from this former provision of campaign finance laws. It gets to endorse candidates within a certain timeframe of elections, but never gets around to explaining why it should enjoy this privilege while others should not.

I think there is a great misunderstanding of the law in question and what the opinion actually says. I’d wager that I am the only person here who has read the opinion rather than simply the news coverage of it. The law prohibited corporate endorsement of a federal candidate within 30 days of a primary or caucus or 60 days of a general election. That includes non-profits like Planned Parenthood or the Sierra Club. That includes labor unions. Does anyone here cheer for the idea of a ban of Planned Parenthood ads endorsing a candidate? You want a 500% excise tax on your favorite environment group’s advertisement?

The particular facts in this case involved the threat of the federal government banning the screening of a movie. During oral argument, the government attorney actually said, “we could prohibit the publication of the book using corporate treasury funds.” Does anyone want to argue that they support the power of the government to ban the publication of a book?

The problem is not money. The problem is intellectually lazy voters. If an idea is bad, can Johnson & Johnson make that idea good by spending $1 billion dollars advocating it? Consumers have no problem ignoring corporate messages when corporations are advocating for their own products and services. Is there any reason why these same people cannot just as easily ignore these corporations’ messages regarding political candidates?

On a more general note, many evil have this idea that the mere idea of a corporation is THE DEVIL. I have never understood that. I suspect there will be little noticeable difference. Corporations set their budgets. They weren’t just socking away money hoping that this day would come. Any campaign financing is likely to remain a small line item. And if not, so what?

posted on January 26th, 2010 at 1:18 pm

9 On January 26th, 2010, Rachel said:

For anyone interested, the SCOTUS opinion and other court documentation on this case is here.

@Fluthor: I don’t think anyone here is pro-book-banning, but the fundamental issue at stake here does come down to money, which corporations have a heck of a lot more of than labor unions, non-profits and your average Joe Citizen. If an idea is bad, Johnson & Johnson may not be able to make that idea fundamentally good, but they can certainly unduly influence a candidate to support it nonetheless by threatening to do whatever it takes to defeat them. And regardless of the acumen of voters, that financial support is key to winning an election. No doubt, money wins elections. From a historical perspective, there has never been an impoverished man elected to the presidency. Even those who came from humble beginnings (Abe Lincoln, James Garfield), all had become at least moderately wealthy by the time they took office. An analysis of the historic 2008 election by the Center for Responsive Politics found that most national races were won by the candidate who spent the most. And in following the pattern of elections past, the bigger spenders won the presidency, 397 of 426 decided House races, and 30 of 32 settled Senate races. The Michael Bloombergs and Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the nation aside, most candidates must rely on private donations to fund their campaigns since the overwhelming majority of self-funded elections fail (for more on this, see Jennifer Steen’s book on the subject). The government thus has a compelling interest to regulate the process in the name of preserving a democracy. As Justice Stevens states in his defense, “The real issue in this case concerns how, not if, the appellant may finance its electioneering” (emphasis mine).

In this particular case, the court’s ruling went far beyond the scope of the case before them. Citizens United is a non-profit organization and yet the court rewrote the rules for both non-profit and for-profit organizations and labor unions, the latter not even being at issue. Also not at issue were current regulations on “electioneering communication,” rather Citizens United argued that the video in question did not qualify as electioneering communication and therefore should not be subjected to laws governing such. To be more precise, Citizens United argued that because its video was available on cable through on-demand, it did not qualify as electioneering communication because it was not publicly distributed.

Citizen United also did not challenge laws on “express advocacy”; they argued instead that their video was a “documentary film that examines certain historical facts” (the court disagreed). Despite these narrow arguments, which did not seek to challenge the fundamental laws in place, the court overreached and ruled instead that the ban on corporate independent expenditures itself represented censorship and a violation of the First Amendment. And in doing so, the court upheld the corporation as an entity deserving of the same and equal rights as citizens — regardless if the corporation is run by U.S. citizens or non-citizens.

It should be noted that existing corporate restrictions in no way infringed on an individual’s right to politically campaign for candidates/causes of their choice. It should also be noted that while the court ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections, they simultaneously left intact the right of the state to impose limits on individual campaign donations (as well as electioneering restrictions in which citizens cannot wear campaign garb or agitate within 100-feet of polling locations). In essence, corporations now get more free reign on electoral spending than do private individuals.

As for newspaper endorsements, I’ve never supported them at all. As a journalist, I feel newspapers should do all they can to maintain impartiality.

Any campaign financing is likely to remain a small line item. And if not, so what?

When its an issue in which millions and even billions of dollars may be at stake, I have no doubt that corporations will find the funds to finance what is in their best interests. Just take the health care reform issue, for instance. Health care insurance companies have always had their PACs in Washington, but since the effort to reform healthcare was resurrected, they’ve dramatically increased their presence and spending. In the second quarter after Obama took office, Blue Cross/Blue Shield upped its lobbying expenditures by a full million, to $2.8 million; GlaxoSmithKline’s spending jumped from $1.8 million to $2.3 million; Novartis grew from $1.4 million to $1.8 million; Metlife Group doubled its spending to $1.7 million; and Allstate, which spent less than $900,000 in the first quarter of last year, boosted its spending to more than $1.5 million from April to June. Is this what you call “small line” item spending?

posted on January 26th, 2010 at 3:09 pm

10 On January 26th, 2010, Fluthor said:

Rachel,

If you are not pro-book banning, I don’t see how you can favor the restrictions that were overturned. The government argued (correctly, IMO) that the previous law allowed the banning of certain books. And frankly, my questions have not been addressed.Do you cheer for the idea of a ban of Planned Parenthood ads endorsing a candidate? Do you want a 500% excise tax on your favorite environment group’s advertisement?

The money issue is frankly a straw man. The First Amendment does not condition the right of free speech on how much money the speaker has. Neither do I see any basis for a constitutional reason for distinguishing between the free speech rights of a pro-profit or a non-profit corporation for prior restraint purposes. On a related note, I should also add that the law has long held that the state cannot condition certain privileges on relinquishment of certain constitutional rights. For example, you cannot abridge a person’s free speech because they receive welfare.

And the court goes beyond the scope of the statute or regulation on appeal all the time because of the broad constitutional principles involved. When Roe v. Wade was decided, it did not just invalidate that Texas statue at issue; it invalidated all statutes that ran counter to the constitutional principles that informed that opinion. There was no need for 49 additional lawsuits. That is what happened in this case as well, as often happens. SCOTUS decisions command national attention because the opinions are broadly applicable almost by definition. Going “beyond the scope” is not a valid legal criticism.

This law was not about finance. It was about speech. The old law made it illegal for say, the Sierra Club, to publish an anti-McCain ad (”drill, baby, drill”, anyone?) ad 60 days before the general election. Any reason such a ban should exist in a country that claims to value free speech?

I think the statement “corporations now get more free reign on electoral spending than do private individuals” is not supported by the text of the opinion. What does a corporation get to do that a natural person cannot?

The issue of “non-citizens” is also a bogeyman. Non-citizen natural persons, provided they are green card holders, are allowed to contribute to campaigns. Of course, for citizenship purposes, a corporation is a citizen of its state of incorporation.

And yes, the previous laws did infringe on a citizen’s right to campaign because it barred like-minded citizens from gathering and forming legal entities for the purposes of political advocacy. If the ACLU wants to endorse a candidate, why should not they have the right to do so. (for the record, the ACLU filed a brief in support of Citizens United in this case)

And yes, I call all of those figures small potatoes compared to those corporations’ annual budgets. Glaxo (a UK company, btw) had over $13 billion in operating income in 2008, so yeah, a few million is a drop in the bucket. I spend a larger amount on the average lunch, proportionally speaking. Even if Glaxo spent $10 billion on ads promoting a bad health care proposal, would that make the idea good? (the term is “line item”, not “small line”, btw)

I actually think the concurrence/dissent by J. Thomas is the correct one because he called for a ban of regulations requiring the disclosure of campaign contributors. Anonymous speech is protected by the First Amendment, and requiring disclosure of who donates to what cause can and does lead to intimidation.

Just because corporations have the right to free speech does not mean they are controlling the political process or the voters. They have the right to express their views, and you have the freedom to reject those views. And, judging by your original post, your subsequent comments, and your blog in general, I am confident that you (and other F-Word readers) will exercise that freedom with aplomb.

posted on January 26th, 2010 at 4:28 pm

11 On January 26th, 2010, Elections for sale, and a return to nerd-dom? « Peacegrrl Returns said:

[...] even think about the implications this decision could have in terms of weight discrimination. This post from the F-word sheds some light. There’s also some info about Rep. Grayson’s [...]

posted on January 26th, 2010 at 9:47 pm

12 On January 31st, 2010, twincats said:

For a bit of balance on the subject:

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/01/yesterdays_supreme_court_rulin.php#more

Ed Brayton points out that corporations have been funneling money into politics for a long time. This ruling simply allows them to do it without pretending they don’t.

posted on January 31st, 2010 at 9:37 pm

13 On February 5th, 2010, All Women Stalker said: