Nexus: Chapman's Journal of Law and Public Policy

Now that the 2010 midterm elections have concluded, we can truly look at the effects of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United. Citizens United was the Supreme Court case decided earlier this year ruling that the First Amendment allowed corporate funding of independent political advertisements during elections. Chapman’s Nexus Journal members have previously posted both praise and criticism of the Citizens United holding in this blog, while trying to mare predictions regarding its potential impact on elections in the future. This month’s midterm election process provided a revelation on the effects of the Supreme Court’s holding and allowing the rights previously reserved for individual citizens to extend to corporations. We are currently in the position for the first time to analyze the impact of Citizens United.

On a practical level, I myself first noticed an impact when watching the television throughout election season. I have never witnessed so many campaign commercials whose primary goal seemed to be to rip the opposing party to shreds while somehow trying to place their own party in a favoring light. It appeared to be that the advertisements were more ferocious than they have ever been in the past. These “attack” ads may be the effect of the disheartening mood among the parties due to the closeness of the competition and the incredible amount of money that was spent during the 2010 election.

"When the economy is bad and things are not going well, candidates are not out there talking about how great things are," says Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group. So what's a candidate to do in this anti-Washington, anti-incumbent campaign? "They are left," Tracey says, "with one option -- to talk about their opponent." FN1.

I can understand the thought process and logic behind these campaign commercials, however they left an unsatisfying taste in my mouth. There is something distasteful and tacky about simply attacking the opponent instead of promoting your own parties interest. It acts as somewhat of a cover-up to me. I want to hear about the party advertising not about their views on their opponents. It seems likely that Citizens United is closely related to the increase in these ads I saw about a million times throughout the month of October. None of which was effective enough on its own to truly shape my opinion about the election or the candidates. There are estimates that go as far as stating that some 3 billion dollars was spent advertising this election season, setting a new record high. Much of this money was likely spent both creating these commercials as well as the price for each time slot for which they played.

Citizens United allowed groups and organizations not explicitly affiliated with any political party to collect a large amount of financial support from different corporations, without exposing their involvement in doing so. These unaffiliated groups who often have strong political agendas are lawfully permitted to campaign for and against candidates. The fact that donations may be anonymous likely plays a strong role in the overwhelmingly strong-worded and aggressive style of this past elections advertising.

Although these campaign advertisements may shed light on certain issues and problems citizens may not have had knowledge of before, I think the advertisements may also have the affect of making these same voters more cynical of not only the opponent of the party’s ad, but also of the party placing the ad. As I suggested earlier, there are sure to be people viewing who do not like the idea of politicians placing ideas in their heads and telling them what they should think. There is something that does not sit well about someone simply attacking another to make themselves look better. It brings us back to the days of high school, where teens would talk about others just to make themselves look “cool” or superior to the rest of their peers. The excessive amount of money that has been spent enables the groups releasing the broadcasts to distort the voter’s sense of truth. There are simply too many ads being aired back and forth by each political party against the other with obviously contradictory views.

Of course there is nothing new about the ugly battlefield that is the political campaign process. Whenever you are dealing with politics, there is going to be exposure to sticky situations and there will always be a certain amount of criticism and attack by opposing parties. However, the holding in Citizens United is only going to help foster these types of strikes by politicians. Large political supporters are likely to have an overwhelming amount of money to spend on their campaign in the hopes of being elected to office. So long as this is occurring and so long as these vicious commercials are getting their politicians into office, why not continue? The problem I have doesn’t necessarily lie with the brutality of some of these broadcasts, but instead lies in a fear that the truth with be lost in the smoke when being fronted by these expensive ads.

The top priority of candidates during the campaign process must be to make sure that voters are as informed as they can possibly be. Rather than having a political tug-of-war with each other, politicians need to focus on educating the citizens they may be serving. In running for a political position, one must remember that they are serving the public. Those elected are serving in public office and their duty is to serve to the best of their ability.

Citizens United should encourage those groups campaigning for individuals running for public office to use the ability of corporations to fund broadcasts as a tool to educate voters as to the issues of importance and the position their nominees take on those issues. Although somewhat entertaining in a sort of cynical way, the commercials aired this fall both in favor and against opposing parties, did little to inform me on the real issues facing the nominees and had no effect the way I voted November 2nd.

FN1: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/10/31/campaign-ads-2010-the-good-the-bad-and-the-funny/