The United States Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC was perceived as a victory for conservatives. The case was brought by Citizens United, a corporation which wanted to spend money to air a video it had created which was critical of Hillary Clinton. Up to that point a corporation was prohibited by statute from using general treasury funds to support or attack a political candidate, i.e. “electioneering.”
So Citizens United brought a lawsuit to declare that the statute prohibiting electioneering was an unconstitutional abridgement of its right to free speech. The Supreme Court held that the prohibition on corporate contributions was unconstitutional.
I suspect that Citizens United, which is probably just a corporate front for the pushing a conservative agenda, figured with the swing to the right by the Supreme Court that it could get restrictions on corporate political spending removed – which in turn would benefit the conservative agenda. Corporations could now pile money into the ring. It made a bet and won, at least in the Supreme Court.
When viewed with a string of cases ending with McCutcheon v. FEC which eliminated aggregate campaign contributions limits, the money door has been opened for political campaigns. So a Hillary hit video and a conservative Court have brought us to where we are at.
Was this a conservative victory?
How many candidates are running on the Republican side? Every billionaire who wants to spend a few million can have a pet candidate or be a candidate. The wackier the candidate the more he or she will appeal to the vocal and wacky base, and be on CNN. There are so many candidates the networks have to ration who can appear at debates. At the debate each candidate gets just a few minutes to spout off his or her one liner to try to make the news. A thoughtful candidate like Jeb Bush does not have a chance. Remember Gresham’s law adapted – “The bad drives out the good.”
I make no predictions on how the election will turn out, but I am thinking that the Supreme Court has done the Democratic Party a favor. Conservatives thought they could spend and spend and spend and win elections. Sometimes they can. It appears now that they are just putting their money down the rabbit hole thanks to the conservative wisdom of the Supreme Court.