Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Corporations "Pac" A Punch: Corporate Involvement's Influence In Elections And A Proposal For Public Campaign Financing In Ohio, Taylor Hagen
Cleveland State Law Review
In 2010, the United States Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision ruled that limiting corporate spending in elections violates the First Amendment right to free speech. With this decision, the Supreme Court overturned election spending restrictions that dated back more than a century. Before Citizens United v. FEC was decided, the Court had previously held that these restrictions were permissible because there is a governmental interest in preventing election and campaign corruption. Now, corporations may expend unlimited funds for outside election spending, to super PACs, and may even establish their own PACs. Increased corporate involvement in elections has deteriorated American …
Constitutional Issues In The Regulation Of The Financing Of Election Campaigns, Archibald Cox
Constitutional Issues In The Regulation Of The Financing Of Election Campaigns, Archibald Cox
Cleveland State Law Review
The decisions sustaining campaign expenditures by corporations and organized groups are libertarian in the superficial sense that they sustain claims under the first amendment. Their effect, however, is to increase the influence of organized groups, especially of groups with access to money, and to diminish the voice of the individual. If liberty means the opportunity of the individual man or woman to express himself or herself in a society in which ideas are judged principally by their merit, increasing the relative influence of organizations and shrinking the attention paid to individual voices means a net loss of human freedom.