Citizens United: A defense

Todd Henderson of the University of Chicago Law School has a defense of Citizens Untied that is well worth the read. Professor Henderson's closing thoughts:

First, I think the case is interesting in how it reveals the schism on the Court (and in all of politics) between those with faith in experts and those with faith in markets. The campaign finance laws, and the dissenters’ views of elections law, are premised on a belief that we can design rules, no matter how layered and complex, that can be implemented by well-meaning bureaucrats with the result that we can take the money/corporate influence/corruption out of politics and finally create Democracy. These people are uncomfortable with uncertainty and unknown outcomes, and believe we should plan our way to some sort of utopia. The Citizens United majority, on the other hand, seems to have a distrust in experts and regulating natural things out of existence, preferring instead to rely on markets to work toward the optimal state of affairs. Of course, there is a tradeoff between a belief in centralized versus diffuse knowledge, and the question is how much of each. In short, I think the Citizens United majority looked at the elaborate regulatory regime, the relative ineptness of the Federal Election Commission bureaucrats charged with implementing it, and decided to err on the side of the marketplace of ideas.

Second, we should not forget the history of our regulation of corporate speech, which, by the way, survives Citizens United. The first law banning corporate contributions in federal political elections was based in part about the content of corporate speech. The Tillman Act, passed in 1907 is named for Senator Benjamin Ryan "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman from South Carolina, one of the most reprehensible public servants in our history. Tillman argued that, "The negro must remain subordinated or be exterminated," and openly called for the murder of blacks in order to, "keep the white race at the top of the heap." Tillman wanted to restrict corporate speech to reduce the influence of Northern corporations, which were opposed to segregation. We should not condemn restrictions of corporate speech for this reason, but we should remember that the motives behind allegedly idealistic legislation are not always what they seem. Sometimes corporations have good things to say; sometimes they have bad things to say. Telling them they cannot speak prevents us from hearing both during a crucial period before our elections.

Finally, some critics deride the case as “activist” and inconsistent with claims about the proper judicial role made by some of the justices in the majority. Of course the claim of activism is as silly as the claim of courts as simply calling balls and strikes, as the Chief Justice has argued. Some of the Court’s job is calling balls and strikes, but most is about policy. And, some of the best court decisions are countermajoritarian. Consider Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), which dealt with a state law banning foreign language instruction for young children, passed during the anti-German hysteria of World War I. The Nebraska Supreme Court had upheld the ban, writing, “The legislature had seen the baneful effects of permitting foreigners, who had taken residence in this country, to rear and educate their children in the language of their native land.” Oliver Wendell Holmes followed his views about judicial restraint and dissented. But the Court got it right. Activism was essential to preserve our liberty.

In Citizens United, the Court decided that we cannot trust the government to tell us what we should be hearing about our political system. In the view of this corporate law professor, this is a victory for our democracy.