Citizens Divided On Citizens United: Campaign Finance Reform And The First Amendment
AN EYE TOWARDS 2012
With the 2010 midterm elections now complete, scholars are beginning to assess the impact of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Some experts are estimating that over three billion dollars were spent on the campaign, which set new records for the amounts of advertisements purchased. Most of the advertisements were those for television, and in nearly every state television viewers were inundated with advertisements at each commercial break, with advertisements increasing in frequency in the weeks leading up to the election.
In California, the governor's race broke spending records, with the LA Times estimating that almost two hundred and fifty million dollars were put into the campaigns, and candidate, Meg Whitman, spent one hundred and forty million dollars of her own money in the election. This massive contribution, however, did not lead to Whitman's intended result: she lost the race for governor to Democratic candidate, Jerry Brown.
Also in California, a controversial initiative on the ballot received large contributions from private corporations but did not achieve a successful outcome. Proposition 23 purported to put a temporary stay on a current California law, Assembly Bill 32, until unemployment levels in the state dipped below five percent and remained there for four consecutive quarters. AB 32 would require emissions reductions in California to drop to match 1990s levels by the year 2020, and the supporters of Proposition 23 attacked the clean energy policy as one that would harm California economically and continue the cycle of unemployment plaguing the state. Those opposing Proposition 23 highlighted the fact that unemployment has not stayed below five percent since 1980, indicating that the initiative was a deceptively designed attempt to kill AB 32. Those opposed to Proposition 23 also pointed out that, interestingly enough, the two largest contributors to the Proposition 23 campaign were two Texas based oil companies, Valero and Tesoro, who combined contributed over five and a half million dollars to the campaign. The two companies have operations in California and, as large polluters, would incur significant costs in complying with the state's emissions reduction policy. The remaining eight of the top ten corporations also had ties to oil or petroleum refining. Even with this massive amount of money and influence exerted by the oil giants, the voters of California chose to vote no on Proposition 23 and protect AB 32.
The outcomes in California are arguably reflective of those around the country. While the Campaign Finance Institute reports that nonparty organizations spent one hundred and thirty percent more on the 2010 election than they did on the 2008 election, researcher Brendan Glavin reports that, "neither set of expenditures (party or non party) could be said to have tipped the electoral balance." In fact, the Institute said that while the vastly heightened amount of nonparty spending, estimated to exceed five hundred million dollars, favored the Republicans, the Democrats mitigated any influence the money may have had by simply stepping up party spending. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent over sixty million dollars to promote its candidates.
While the excessive spending doesn’t seem to have a direct link to successful campaigns yet, one has to remember that the 2010 election was only a midterm election. Perhaps all the big stops have yet to be pulled out, as both parties are gearing up for the Presidential election in 2012. After all, an infusion of cash late in the game by an independent group associated with Karl Rove, forced incumbent Democrat James Oberstar to run the his first negative campaign ad against an opponent in his entire career. Who knows what strategic injections of campaign capital may mean for the 2012 election, when so much more than just representative seats are on the line. Perhaps the true effects of the Citizen's United decision are still yet to be revealed.
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