Jan 29, 2010 by Bruce
With all due deference to the Executive Branch, you’re “completely wrong”
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor yesterday to rebut President Obama’s State of the Union comments about the Citizens United decision (that supposedly opened the floodgates to foreign money pouring into our federal elections). You should read McConnell’s press release for particulars, but his point is that federal law, and the Federal Election Commission regulations concerning foreign corporations were left unchanged by the CU decision and are pretty unambiguous.
McConnell cites a provision of the election statute, Title 2 of U.S.C. Section 441e, which he paraphrases:
Foreign nationals, specifically defined to include foreign corporations, are prohibited from, quote, ‘directly or indirectly’ making ‘a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State or local election.’
The FEC regulation which was also not affected by the decision, says:
‘A foreign national shall not direct, dictate, control, or directly or indirectly participate in the decision making process of any person, such as a corporation, labor organization, political committee, or political organization with regard to such person’s Federal or non-Federal election-related activities, such as decisions concerning the making of contributions, donations, expenditures, or disbursements in connection with elections for any Federal, State, or local office or decisions concerning the administration of a political committee.’
McConnell also makes the point, that with regard to state elections, 26 states allow corporations and unions to speak, without any discernable adverse impacts being reported.
It seems kind of obvious to me that Apple, Inc. (or any big public corporation) would avoid (like the plague) taking sides in an election where, by doing so, they stand to alienate half of their customers. But industry groups, consumer groups, advocacy organizations and the like represent groups of people (people who are voters, let’s not forget) on all points along the political spectrum who should be entitled to have their voice heard in the 60 days prior to an election. McCain-Feingold’s restrictions on such speech during the 60 day “window” prior to a federal election don’t make much sense, let alone survive the First Amendment’s plain language.
