Will Wal-Mart be our next President?

By Will Parry

Will the United States Supreme Court now rule that Wal-Mart can run for President?

That was the sardonic question posed by Greg Palast, writing in the February 15 Progressive Populist, after the court’s five right-wing justices declared that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as us human beings.

Palast was making a point through exaggeration, in the fine old tradition of Mark Twain. What is not at all far-fetched is a future in which the Wal-Marts of the corporate world elect their stooge as president, and stack the Congress and the state legislatures while they’re at it.

That’s the threat posed by the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the Citizens United case.

President Obama called it “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

The corporation, writes Patricia J. Williams in the February 15 issue of The Nation, “will now enjoy a range of First Amendment benefits…constrained only by the size of its treasury in deploying whatever technological bullhorn has the greatest chance of drowning out everyone else.”

Or as The New York Times declared in a January 22 editorial: “If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.”

Lawrence M. Noble, former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission, makes the same point about corporate blackmail: “We have got a million we can spend on advertising for you or against you – whichever one you want.”

In his scathing 90-page dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that “while American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of money in politics.”

“Corporate interests already had too much money power over our political system,” writes Jim Hightower, the well-known Texas populist. “Using their PACs, executive bundling, 527s, front groups and other financing gimmicks, their chosen candidates have long had big advantage over lesser-funded aspirants.”

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader pointed out that “the financial sector invested more than $5 billion in political influence purchasing over the past decade, with as many as 3,000 lobbyists, winning deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial crisis.”

Now the lid on corporate spending, never screwed on too securely, is blown sky-high.
Plainly, progressives cannot hold still for what Jim Hightower calls “a black-robed coup” by Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas.

New York Senator Charles E. Schuman and Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen, both Democrats, have been working on legislation in anticipation of the court’s ruling. One possibility would be a bill to ban political advertising by corporations that hire lobbyists, receive government money, or collect most of their revenue abroad.

Advocates are also stepping up the demand for public financing of elections, encouraged by the filing of the Fair Elections Now Act, which would provide congressional candidates with an alternative to corporate-funded campaigns.
Sponsored by Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois and Representative John Larson of Connecticut, both Democrats, the bill would encourage unlimited small-dollar donations from individuals. It would also provide qualifying candidates with public funding in exchange for refusing corporate or large private contributions. The bill has broad support, including 126 House co-sponsors.

Conceding that it will require a long-term campaign, Public Citizen is calling for a constitutional amendment, stating that for-profit corporations are not entitled to First Amendment protections except for freedom of the press.