A Big Week for Campaign Finance Reform

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission...sounds like just another bureaucratic supreme court hearing right? Wrong. The outcome of this case, which opens up for discussion tomorrow (Wednesday), could drastically alter the American electoral system as we know it. And that's not all, many media sources like the LA Times are crying out that this ruling could change the American Republic as we know it, "turning us from a government of 'we the people' to 'we the corporations'." So why all the big fuss?

In its second supreme court hearing this year, Citizens United, a conservative non-profit advocacy group, is once again challenging the congress's ability to regulate corporate campaign expenditures. Meaning that large corporations with millions and billions of dollars to throw away, can toss that cash over to any electoral party, candidate, or cause they so choose and the FEC will NOT be able to regulate said donation. When you step back and think about what kind of impact a change to the electoral system like this could make, you start to think more LA Times big picture American democratic process change.

If you're wondering what the meat and potatoes of this exact hearing will be, well it all boils down to a movie. A very politically bias and potentially influential movie that is, produced by non-other than the Citizens United. It's called "Hillary: The Movie". The movie was a source of great debate, and was never actually allowed to be aired during the 2008 presidential primary. Citizens United is arguing that it was free speech, but the FEC ruled that during a campaign, it fell under their regulatory guidelines of spending caps. But Hillary lost right? So in essence that's all that they would have accomplished had the FEC not shot down their movie? It's not like it was called "Hillary AND Obama: The Movie". Retrospectively Citizens United can't complain that their movie could have altered the election results any differently than they turned out on their own.

So why all the Supreme Court fuss? Well like usual in the supreme court, it's a tiny issue being debated with much larger stakes at hand. As the Wall Street Journal article says, "the case has far broader implications". So basically the court will need to decide if they want to stand by previous rulings that permit the FEC to regulate corporate campaign spending or do they want to overturn those rulings and let all the big guys come put their grimy hands in the electoral pot with the rest of us individual citizens. Forget your newly found sense of political efficacy, that five dollar donation you made to your candidate online won't mean diddly-squat when Exxon Mobile is tossing in a million times that donation to the other candidate...Haven't we learned anything about big corporations in the last few months? They aren't too great at controlling their spending habits.

As a side note, this will be Judge Sonia Sotomayor's first big hearing. No pressure Sonia...