The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

In considering Citizens United, it appears that nearly everyone believes that either corporate election spending is a bad thing or that it is a good thing. Query whether it is in fact nothing.

First, the growth in election spending predates Citizens United. Total election spending, including dollars spent by presidential candidates, senate and house candidates, political parties and independent interest groups, has risen from $1,618,936,265 in 1998 to $5,285,680,883 in 2008. (http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/topcontribs.php?cycle=2008). Thus, any argument that Citizens United generally taints elections with money is misplaced. Money, lots of money, has generally tainted elections for a long time. To the extent that this money makes politicians beholden to special interests, I personally don’t believe that the difference between $5 billion and $10 billion is significant; certainly, the former is enough to buy the loyalty of politicians. The latter doesn’t make it any truer than it already is.

Second, there appears to be a strong sentiment that corporate spending post-Citizens United will benefit the Republican Party. The facts do not support this contention. As has been pointed out by some bloggers herein, corporations have been able to contribute large amounts of money through PACs, and even though that spending was not as direct, it has not been disputed that voters nonetheless understood which candidate was being supported or disparaged. Consider also that in the 2008 election cycle only 16 of the top 100 overall donors leaned Republican. (http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/topcontribs.php?cycle=2008). Moreover, something that is not understood by many is that regardless of an organizations political leaning, business organizations tend to contribute money to candidates from both parties. The logical is simple: a corporation may prefer one candidate, but the prudent thing is to hedge your bets and not entirely p*** off the other candidate who might win the election. Thus, the third largest contributor in 2008, JPMorgan Chase & Co, contributed 60% of their dollars to Democrats and 40% to Republicans; conversely, the American Bankers Assn was the top Republican contributor and 18th overall contributor in 2008—it donated 43% to Democrats and 57% to Republicans. (http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/topcontribs.php?cycle=2008). Money tainted elections before Citizens United—and it tainted both sides of the aisle.

Third, the argument seems to be that increased corporate spending will have a greater influence on the outcome of elections. This presumes that voters make their decisions based on the effects of said spending and furthermore presumes that the difference between $5 billion and $10 billion is meaningful. The data suggest that neither of those is true. In fact, most research shows that campaign spending is subject to the law of diminishing returns; thus, the magic number is actually a minimum amount necessary to gain name recognition with the electorate—every dollar above that threshold means less and less to the outcome of an election. (http://www.economist.com/node/17201957).

In summary, I’ll be the first to say that spending of this type in elections doesn’t pass the smell test—but almost nothing about politics in this day and age does. Thus, at worst, Citizens United represents one more turd on top of the steaming pile of crap that this country’s politics have become—but it doesn’t make it any stinkier than it already is.