Today the business leaders of the Committee for Economic Development and the bipartisan Americans for Campaign Reform released a new poll showing that almost 2/3 of likely Republican Primary voters in the critical swing state of NH strongly disagree with the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United that political spending by corporations and unions is a form of free speech protected under the First Amendment.
As we all know, the Citizens United decision allowed corporations to spend unlimited money for election purposes and advertising without disclosing the source of their funding.
In a moment when the national spotlight has fallen on Wall Street, the timing of this poll crystalizes the fact that the American outrage with the problem of concentrated corporate money is in no way a partisan anger.
One group that is currently focused on dealing with this issue is the Corporate Reform Coalition, organized by Public Citizen. The coalition is pushing for a set of legislative and corporate governance solutions to expose corporate influence in our elections and push for accountability.
Since Citizens United, any CEO at a major company has free reign to pick up the corporate checkbook and spend, spend, spend to elect the candidate of their choosing. One appalling part of this newly enabled practice is that corporation shareholders aren’t offered any input in – or even informed of – the political causes that their own money goes to influence. And the bulk of Americans are shareholders.
Everyone who has a pension or investments in the stock market may be having their investments used to political ends—and they are powerless to have a voice in the process.
A key focus of the Corporate Reform Coalition is to give Americans that voice and the information they need to exercise it. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) currently has the authority to create rules requiring more disclosure from companies engaged in political spending. In August, a group of 10 corporate and securities law experts petitioned the SEC to develop rules to require public companies to disclose all of their corporate political activities to shareholders. The Corporate Reform Coalition is planning to submit numerous comments to the SEC on the petition to hold bolster its case, and to ask the public to comment as well.
Members of the coalition are also backing legislation on Capitol Hill and at the state level that would require companies to report their political expenditures to shareholders and in the case of the federal Shareholder Protection Act, offer a critical voice to the Americans who actually own the wealth of corporations – the shareholders– in whether the company spends at all.
This type of reform, whether legislative or done at the SEC, is critical in the post-Citizen United era. In an environment where corporate lobbyists are more empowered and emboldened than ever and walk the halls of Congress carrying large clubs, we need viable solutions. Members of Congress and their staffs are fully aware of the massive campaign war chests that corporate lobbyists can use to reward their friends and punish their enemies. Corporate lobbyists have long enjoyed special access on Capitol Hill, but today they can play the role of king-makers in Congress.
In 2009, the New York Times reported that about 50% of American households own stock. Responsible corporate governance that requires the involvement of informed shareholders is not a partisan issue. It’s about ordinary Americans having a right to know how corporations are spending their money in elections, and that’s a critical issue for all shareholders and voters.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
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