Did Citizen's United Make A Difference?

Someone please explain this to me. How exactly does limiting the ability of ORGANIZATIONS to fund campaigns and thus overwhelm the voice of the general electorate limit free speech? Can it be argued that such activities can limit the ability of groups with less means to communicate with less means? If so, what is being done to prevent the drowning out of these said groups?
 
Dymanic said:
What kind of "filters" is the average grown-up supposed to have in place that would provide protection against such blatant dishonesty?
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Is this your idea of the average grown-up, in need of your benevolent protection?


I also find it strange that you're treating this problem as if it's peculiar to advertising. It's not. What "protects" the public from lies that the press spreads about a candidate? Because that happens too, you know. The problem is the same in both cases, and so is the solution: more speech, not less.

Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, you've just admitted (without even realizing it) that your strategy doesn't even work. The ad you decry came from the Romney campaign. But Citizens United has no impact on campaign advertising by candidates. You're trying to stop false advertising, but the criteria on which you're choosing whether or not to allow speech has absolutely nothing to do with its truthfulness. You're letting false ads through, and you want to block ads which could counter those false ads.
 
L.Y.S. said:
Someone please explain this to me. How exactly does limiting the ability of ORGANIZATIONS to fund campaigns and thus overwhelm the voice of the general electorate limit free speech?
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I've explained it several times. The freedom of association (joining your resources with those of other like-minded people for the purpose of engaging in speech acts) is an integral part of your individual First Amendment free speech rights.

Other than that, your loaded question begs a question and presents a contradiction. The contradiction is that as individuals, the "general electorate" doesn't have one single voice. The question begging is the assumption that spending by associations did overwhelm the voices of individuals. [ETA: Similarly, freedom of the press doesn't mean that I am entitled to a printing press at least as good as anyone else's.] I think that my associations actually amplify my own puny voice.

Can it be argued that such activities can limit the ability of groups with less means to communicate with less means?
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Not persuasively.

Your exercise of your free speech rights cannot correctly ever be construed as inhibiting my exercise of my free speech rights. It's not a zero sum thing. By engaging in a speech act, I don't use up some finite national reserve of potential speech acts.

The fact that some individuals have more money than others is irrelevant to the question. (Or if it's relevant, it's a good argument in favor of the need for freedom of association.) There is no right to have the same wherewithal to engage in speech acts as anyone else. What there actually is is a prohibition on government from restricting free speech (unless there is a valid state interest that outweighs the right, such as public safety).

If so, what is being done to prevent the drowning out of these said groups?
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Since drowning out isn't really happening (speech is not a zero sum thing), there can't be much of an answer to this. But I would point out that you cannot support free speech by restricting it, which sounds like the "solution" your question is pointing toward.
 
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L.Y.S. said:
Someone please explain this to me. How exactly does limiting the ability of ORGANIZATIONS to fund campaigns and thus overwhelm the voice of the general electorate limit free speech?
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The law in question doesn't only stop organizations from overwhelming other voices. It stops other voices completely, guaranteeing that they are overwhelmed.

Can it be argued that such activities can limit the ability of groups with less means to communicate with less means?
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You mean small groups like, oh, I don't know... Citizens United?

If so, what is being done to prevent the drowning out of these said groups?
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How about letting them speak? Wouldn't that help?
 
Dymanic said:
What kind of "filters" is the average grown-up supposed to have in place that would provide protection against such blatant dishonesty?
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Apparently the ones enough people have such that they didn't fall for that ad to the extent that it decided the election in Romney's favor.

Why don't you trust the people?

Again, the solution to someone telling a lie is not the restriction of free speech, but rather the exercise of more free speech.
 
L.Y.S. said:
How exactly does limiting the ability of ORGANIZATIONS to fund campaigns
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Just for clarification, the parts of McCain-Feingold that apply to candidates' campaigns were not ruled unconstitutional in the Citizens United case.

The issue was not about contributions by corporations or individuals to candidate campaigns. Those limitations and disclosure laws are all still in place.

It was about the right of associations to spend their own money on independent electioneering.

Now as for the question of where that association gets its money (in the case of SuperPACS, the money might come from other associations), the court upheld the pertinent disclosure laws, and even hinted that Congress could pass even stronger disclosure laws. It rejected the argument that the disclosure law might chill speech by opening up donors to retaliation. It said that retaliation being merely possible wasn't enough to consider the disclosure law chilling. It looked for evidence of such an effect, and found none. (The decision observed that Citizens United had been disclosing its member list for years and had no incidents of retaliation.)

There is no guarantee of anonymity in the First Amendment.
 
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Thanks for clarifying, I withdraw my arguments.
 
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Ziggurat said:
You're trying to stop false advertising, but the criteria on which you're choosing whether or not to allow speech has absolutely nothing to do with its truthfulness.
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That's true, but while we're on the subject of false advertising, why is it that advertisers (corporations, say) are prohibited from making false claims about commercial products, yet are protected by the First Amendment from being prohibited from making false claims about a political candidate?

The ad you decry came from the Romney campaign. But Citizens United has no impact on campaign advertising by candidates.
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I'm well aware of that. But it's really not relevant to the point I was refuting: "By the time we're grown ups, we should all have pretty strong marketing filters in place."

Apparently the ones enough people have such that they didn't fall for that ad to the extent that it decided the election in Romney's favor.
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And I have a magic amulet that repels grizzly bears. Haven't seen a single one since I first put it on. Would you like some examples of worthless products that have found their way into the hands of large numbers of grown-ups despite the strong marketing filters you say they should all have in place?

Why don't you trust the people?
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I trust an informed populace a lot more than a misinformed one.

By engaging in a speech act, I don't use up some finite national reserve of potential speech acts.
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The sought-after commodity here is the prime broadcasting spot -- and if there were an infinite number of them, they wouldn't be so expensive.
 
Dymanic said:
On Nov. 22, 2011, Mitt Romney’s campaign released an ad which featured Obama saying, "If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose".

Turns out that was snipped from a longer quote which, in its entirety, was:

"Sen. McCain's campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose.’"


What kind of "filters" is the average grown-up supposed to have in place that would provide protection against such blatant dishonesty? Do you really equate the potential damage to our society from that kind of advertising with the potential damage from advertising that basically pranks gullible adolescents into squandering a couple of bucks on x-ray specs? Does the "If you're that gullible you deserve to learn a hard lesson" rule apply even if the hard lesson is that you -- along with a great many similarly gullible people -- have just made one of the most important decisions you will ever be called upon to make as a citizen based on "information" that was completely false? And what about the non-gullible citizens who will also pay the price of that hard lesson if they turn out to be fewer in number than the gullible ones? Do they also deserve it even if the only reason is that they weren't able to pool together enough money to fund advertising that would expose the falsehoods?
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And somehow if the Citizens United decision had gone the other way politicians would stop lying?

What is the relevance of this post?
 
Dymanic said:
That's true, but while we're on the subject of false advertising, why is it that advertisers (corporations, say) are prohibited from making false claims about commercial products, yet are protected by the First Amendment from being prohibited from making false claims about a political candidate?
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Because that's commercial speech.

The Citizens United case is about political speech.
 
Dymanic said:
That's true, but while we're on the subject of false advertising, why is it that advertisers (corporations, say) are prohibited from making false claims about commercial products, yet are protected by the First Amendment from being prohibited from making false claims about a political candidate?
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It's not that commercial product ads are prohibited from making any false claims about their product, but only certain things. (Usually things that are actionable in comparing their product to another. Curiously, it's easier for them to get away with saying their product is the "best" than to claim that it's "better" than any other brand. And of course FDA regulated products have to abide by those regulations.)

Anyway, on this other topic (which has nothing to do with Citizens United), FactCheck.org wrote a pretty good essay a few years back that I recommend:

http://www.factcheck.org/2004/06/false-ads-there-oughta-be-a-law-or-maybe-not/
 
Dymanic said:
Does the First Amendment make any such distinction?
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No, but McCain-Feingold, the law that was being challenged in Citizens United, did. There was a chunk in the Citizens United decision examining whether the film Hillary could be construed as political speech and as electioneering for or against a candidate to determine whether or not the section of McCain-Feingold even applied. (It did.)
 
Now that the election is over, I think it's fair to say that Citizens United didn't change the outcome. I don't think it's clear that it changed the margins, either.

It brought a lot of advertising dollars to TV stations, but it's really debatable whether all that advertising actually worked.


I think all that advertising is more powerful in primaries, where most people don't have time or interest to really scrutinize candidates' claims.
 
WildCat said:
What is the relevance of this post?
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It was a response to my rambling post about the liberal underpinnings of a commitment to free speech. I said we ought trust people to be able to develop BS detectors. I compared commercial speech to political speech in this regard. You'd only "buy" the misleading ad Dynamic cited if you're also gullible enough to buy x-ray specs too.

And the solution is not to prohibit the speech, but to tell people that it's a lie.

If people are so stupid that we can't trust them to deal with free speech, the entire American experiment is doomed.
 
Dymanic said:
The sought-after commodity here is the prime broadcasting spot -- and if there were an infinite number of them, they wouldn't be so expensive.
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Time and time again, the facts of the case demonstrate your argument holds no water.

Citizens United were not trying to buy prime broadcasting spots. Yet their speech was still prohibited.
 
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