It’s election season and the political ads are overwhelming. You can run, but you can’t hide from the accusations, insults and innuendo. In any political season, the negative marketing explodes. But for this mid-term election, its worse than ever. If you’re looking for somebody to blame, check out the Supreme Court and the Citizens United ruling, that unleashed unaccountable political action committees to spend unlimited amounts of money to for spreading lies and half-truths.
Citizens United get a ruling
The Citizens United ruling was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court declaring that corporate funding of independent political marketing can’t be limited under the First Amendment. A provision of the McCain- Feingold Act, or the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, was stopped by the Supreme Court which had been good for Citizens United. The provision barred all corporations, both for-profit and non-profit, plus unions from running broadcast, cable, or satellite advertising that mentioned a candidate within 60 days of a general election or thirty days of a primary.
How Citizens United polluted the airwaves
The midterm election could be here in a week or two. Citizens United has made a really big impact on what will happen. All states are bound to determine the special interest group ads. They’ll all be deceptive attacks to change things. Voters do not know who’s behind these ads or who’s paying for them. According to the new York Times, even foreign corporations are spending freely to get candidates in their back pockets elected. The Center for American progress reports that all the companies in Bahrain, India and Egypt running ads for Republicans within the midterm races have to pay “dues” to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
What will happen as a result of Citizens United
Citizens United presents a significant problem to the U.S. This is what the Los Angeles Times explains. For the last two years, abuses of the financial industries and insurance companies has been something, reports the Times, that the federal government has been trying to stop. Tax breaks for companies that ship positions overseas have been rolled back. The clean air and water rules actually mean something. They’re being enforced. Republicans may just be able to stop the unregulated, out of control political spending with November elections because of Citizens United. If that happens, the lobbyists will start writing the laws once again. As outlined by the Times, this is Congress’ problem. They need to fix the problem too. Even if they do, it can be too late to stem the damage already done in this election.
Articles cited
New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/10/06/opinion/06wed1.html?scp=2 and amp;sq=us chamber and amp;st=cse
Los Angeles Times
latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/09/weekly-remarks-greg-walden-stop-tax-hikes-obama.html
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