What has the Supreme Court said about the constitutionality of campaign finance laws?
About this video
This video introduces the debate over campaign finance regulation: whether governments can limit how much corporations and wealthy individuals spend in politics. The Supreme Court has recently struck down many such limits as violating free speech, while more liberal justices argue the First Amendment is not about letting a few people or corporations dominate elections.
You'll be able to
- describe the two sides of the debate about limiting campaign spending.
- explain what the Supreme Court has recently held about restrictions on corporate political spending.
- explain the more liberal justices' view of what the First Amendment is about.
Key words
- Campaign finance regulation
- Laws that limit or control how money is raised and spent in elections.
- Free speech
- The First Amendment right to express views, which spenders argue includes spending money on politics.
- Undue influence
- Too much power over the political process held by a few wealthy people or corporations.
Transcript
Another major issue recently has involved campaign finance regulation. To what extent can the government regulate the amount of money, for example, that corporations and wealthy individuals can spend in the political process. They will claim this is our free speech. Others will claim, however, that there's a sufficiently important interest in protecting the democratic process against corporations and wealthy individuals having an undue influence that there's a need to restrict that.
That's another example of an issue that continues to be in conflict. Congress has enacted and states have enacted many laws that were designed to restrict the amount that corporations could spend in the political process. The Supreme Court, particularly in the last decade or so, has held those restrictions unconstitutional, basically taking the view that corporations have the same freedom to participate in this way, even though they can't vote as individuals do.
More liberal justices who normally protect a stronger version of free speech, have said, no, that's not what the First Amendment is about. It's not about allowing a handful of people or corporations to distort and dominate the electoral process, which is fundamentally what the democracy is about.
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