Constituency

noun

In the era of Citizens United the question of what constitutes
constituency is a legitimate one. Indeed, it may be the biggest question
of this election cycle. Traditionally, a constituent was a person, or
group of people, that gave a politician mandate as an elected
representative. Conversely, politicians were seen to have an obligation
to their constituents since mandate required that legislators behave in a
way that reflected the desires of their constituents.  However, in 2020
it appears that what constitutes constituency is no longer this
traditional obligation, but rather a cacophony of corporate interest and
moneyed Super PACS. Moreover, in this age of ‘corporations are people’
it also appears that this reinstantiation extends all the way to the
White House as moneyed interests invariably concentrate power.

So, how did we get started down this path? Long before Citizens
United there was another SCOTUS case that garners far less attention but
was ultimately more impactful in my opinion. In that case, Buckley vs
Valeo , SCOTUS destroyed several provisions of the the Federal Election Campaign Act on grounds that those provisions violated First Amendment rights.

First some background. The Federal Election Campaign Act
of 1971 and 1974 sought to “restrain personal contributions”, establish
specific “ceilings for media expenditures”, and mandate “full public
disclosure of campaign receipts and disbursements”. (Buckley v. Valeo, Opinion of the Court) The goal was to preserve equality of voice in our democracy by regulating campaign contributions and limiting spending. An additional amendment provided public financing for presidential elections.
In the wake of Watergate this seemed like the moral thing to do.
Unfortunately, in a per curiam opinion however, SCOTUS agreed that
several key provisions of the FECA were unconstitutional. Their
objections were not governed by a desire for equality of voice but
rather by an argument that married campaign contributions and spending
to political free speech. It is clear in retrospect that this ruling
provided the necessary precedence for   Citizens United.

Before we consider the extent of this argument, however, we should
first distinguish from a philosophical point of view, why money in
politics may be a bad thing. In Plato’s The Republic, Socrates makes
clear that the philosopher kings despise political power and rule.
Conversely, if those who wish to govern are seekers of power and money,
 they will not seek the good of the entire city-state, but rather pursue
political office for their own benefit. Ergo, philosopher kings make
better rulers. Since they are not interested in acquiring these types of
rewards, their sole motivation becomes the well being of the ruled and
the common good. Their commitment to justness and their hatred of power
obligates this.

Plato further believed that the problem of who should rule generally
lead to an inflexible and destabilizing disagreement between economic
elites and the masses; and that rule by philosopher kings would avert
such a controversy.  “For it is likely that if a city of good men came
to be, there would be a fight over not ruling, just as there is now over
ruling; and there it would become manifest that a true ruler really
does not naturally consider his own advantage but rather that of the one
who is ruled.” (The Republic, Pg 25)
Modern political philosopher
John Rawls also discusses the ethics surrounding money in democracy. In a
Theory of Justice, Rawls states:

“The liberties protected by the principle of participation lose much
of their value whenever those who have greater private means are
permitted to use their advantages to control the course of public
debate. For eventually these inequalities will enable those better
situated to exercise a larger influence over the development of
legislation.” Continuing,“… political parties are to be made independent
from private economic interests by allotting them sufficient tax
revenues to play their part in the constitutional scheme. What is
necessary is that political parties be autonomous with respect to
private demands, that is, demands not expressed in the public forum and
argued for openly by reference to a conception of the public good.  If
society does not bear the costs of organization, and party funds need to
be solicited from the more advantaged social and economic interests,
the pleadings of those groups are bound to receive excessive attention.
And this is all the more likely when the less favored members of
society, having been effectively prevented by their lack of means from
exercising their fair degree of influence, withdraw into apathy and
resentment” (Pg. 198, chapter on Political Justice and The Constitution)

Rawls is pretty clear on the idea that those with access to greater
funds can unduly influence legislation that benefits the few at the
expense of the majority; and that this can lead to unjustness in our
democracy.

So, it seems that equality of influence and equality of voice in
political elections should be the assurance of campaign contribution
jurisprudence and legislation. Yet, here we are in 2016 and it is not.
This fact brings us full circle to the question originally posited: What
constitutes constituency?

I would argue that the idea that any corporation should be granted
the same constitutional and natural rights as individual citizens is
morally perverse and a degradation to our democracy. A prime example of
this is manifested in the 2013 SCOTUS case Burell vs Hobby Lobby
. Indeed, the most damaging point in Samuel Alito’s opinion was his
definition of a corporation. He states, “A corporation is simply a form
of organization used by human beings to achieve desired ends…When
rights, whether constitutional or statutory, are extended to
corporations, the purpose is to protect the rights of these people.”
(Hobby Lobby decision, Alito) In other words, corporations are
collections of individuals, so deserve all the protections the
individuals in the collective have.  Yet, given the effects of this
decision, that claim is questionable at best. Millions of women were
denied insurance-covered access to birth control whether or not they
agreed with the religious underpinnings that motivated the organizations
owners. What of their rights? A true preservation of rights would have
left every woman’s choice intact. If you morally disagree with taking
birth control you have the choice to not do so. The beliefs of the
owners were given precedence over many employees in the collective,
rendering his argument moot. For missing from Alito’s definition of
collective were the individual voices of all its employees. Not all were
heard nor given equality of voice. So, clearly, the belief that a
corporation is a collective of individuals and ergo is entitled to the
same rights as an individual- regardless of whether all the participants
in the collective agree- is deeply flawed.

Further compounding the problem is the disturbing fact that
corporations are additionally afforded rights that individuals are not
necessarily entitled too. These include massive tax benefits and several
forms of liability protection. So it prima facie appears that SCOTUS is
not being consistent in the way it views the interchangeability of
individuals and corporations. Why is this?

As we discussed earlier, money consolidates power. And it does so in a
continual vicious cycle.  Public policy no longer focuses on public
goods but rather on further ingraining the desires of the moneyed elite
who contribute millions to our political candidates. And, morosely, this
truism is not contained to any one party- it is systemic. At this
point, to deny that quid pro quo between politicians and corporate
interest isn’t a reality is simply naïve.

One of the latest manifestations of this vicious cycle is known as
inversion. Inversion is when an American corporation endeavors to buy a
foreign company in order to move their headquarters abroad with the sole
purpose of not paying American corporate taxes. Importantly, the
majority of employees, sales and profits still remain in the United
States. To put it bluntly, these corporations suck at the government
teat, leach off the American taxpayer and reap ever increasing profits
while giving close to nothing back. They move their headquarters abroad,
continue to use our paved highways, police and the like, pay wages so
low that chunks of their employees collect both Medicaid and food
stamps, and often do so after taking advantage of government subsidized
tax breaks designed to keep them here in the United States. All the
while, Congress has become ineffectual at stopping it due to the reams
of laws created by the corporate lobbyists whose money put them into
office. The wealth of the United States is being extracted, my fellow
Americans, and there is seemingly no end in sight. But that’s not what’s
most tragic. What’s most tragic is that we have done this to ourselves
by blindly handing over ever increasing amounts of power to corporate
interests at the expense of individual citizens and the American common
good.

In the wake of Citizens United, President Obama stated in his 2010
State of the Union address that one of the unintended consequences of
the SCOTUS decision would not only be the unlimited contributions of
American corporations, but also those from foreign companies. In his
dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens more or less agreed with Obama
stating the court’s majority “would appear to afford the same protection
to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual
Americans.” Even so, when Obama stated this, Samuel Alito appeared to
openly mouth “Not true”. Really Judge Alito? It should be obvious that
what is in the best interests of a foreign company with an American
subsidiary is not necessarily in the best interests of America. Yet,
here we are in 2016 and it seems that Obama’s predictions and worries
were somewhat accurate. There are now multi nationals openly lobbying
Congress. There is dark money whose origin cannot be traced. There are
foreign entities giving large sums of capital to non-profits held by
political candidates and those who support them.

Dissenters to my argument will more than likely state the obvious.
Unlimited spending in advertising is not the same thing as being able to
contribute unlimited sums directly to the candidate. But isn’t it? Is
not the main focus of any political campaign the shaping of perception?
The packaging and selling of the candidate? And what better way of doing
thus in this modern media age than through advertising? Indeed, in 2008
President Obama’s campaign won top awards in advertising garnering Ad
Age’s Marketer of the Year, and Obama for America unanimously won two
Grand Prix awards at Cannes.

Dissenters may further argue that I am conflating artificial rights
with natural rights. Yet, am I? Granted the traditional domain for
corporate rights was certainly artificial. And I am not arguing against
that here. What I am claiming is that along the way corporate rights
have morphed from artificial rights to a perverse version of natural
rights. Artificial personhood at one time allowed corporations to enter
into contracts, engage in litigation, collect fees and pay wages and
taxes-  but did not grant the same kind of natural rights we are
discussing here. We have clearly exceeded these traditional confines of
artificial personhood, so as far as I am concerned the argument of
artificial rights is a moot one.

At this stage in the game I do not see how a defense of unlimited
money in politics is tenable. I do not see how bestowing corporations
with the same natural rights as individuals has served us well. I do not
see a legitimate reason to further the argument that corporations are
constituents on the same level as individual citizens. It has simply
gone too far and is contributing to unsustainable income inequality.
And, most importantly, I am concerned by the systemic lack of will to
change these things within the political establishment of both parties.
Its dangerous.