In the State of the Union address, one of the things President Obama touched on was a recent decision by the Supreme Court that expanded Freedom of Speech in the Election Process. He said:
"Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests-including foreign corporations-to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that's why I'm urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong."
An article in today's Wall Street Journal points out that not only was this a gross overreaction, but he didn't even know what the facts were.
Then there is the substance of the remark itself. It was factually wrong. The Court's ruling in Citizens United concerned the right of labor unions and domestic corporations, including nonprofits, to express their views about candidates in media such as books, films and TV within 60 days of an election. In short, it concerned freedom of speech; in particular, an independent film critical of Hillary Clinton funded by a nonprofit corporation.While the Court reversed a 1990 decision allowing such a ban, it left standing current restrictions on foreign nationals and "entities." Also untouched was a 100-year-old ban on domestic corporate contributions to political campaigns to which the president was presumably referring erroneously.
What this decision does allow is ordinary citizens to better participate in politics. John Stossel reports:
When Russ Howard and Steve Cicero launched a grassroots recall campaign against an incumbent politician, they received fines for campaign violations that were eight times the amount of money they had actually raised. Last year when I was still at ABC, I reported on six neighbors in Colorado who protested their city council's proposal to merge with a neighboring suburb. Their protest? They handed out lawn signs. Their opponents used campaign finance laws to sue them, because they hadn't registered as an "issue committee" and hadn't filed reports on every single expense.
A Word About Campaign Finance Laws
The majority of laws are designed to protect certain people or companies from competition. In the case of Campaign Finance Law, the laws help incumbents stay in power. This is why President Obama had such an adverse reaction to the Supreme Court's decision. It threatens his power. In fact, he saw it as such a threat, he didn't even bother to check his facts.