Religion & Law

I do not think my views about the Citizens United decision should divide Michael and me, because it seems to me that the theory of judicial review (and constitutional interpretation) that Michael defends in his recent books point in the same direction as the Court majority.  But -- and this is awkward, I admit, for me! -- Michael (the author of those books) disagrees.  Oh well.  That said, I want to echo Michael again:  Facts matter.  And, as my colleague, election-law-expert Lloyd Mayer wrote:

There are several reasons why the[] worst case scenarios are unlikely. First, the decision does not threaten the longstanding prohibitions on corporate contributions to candidates or probably even the more recent prohibition on such contributions to political parties. . . .

Second, corporations were able to engage in a significant amount of election-related spending even before this decision. . . .

The decision therefore does not mean we will suddenly see a flood of election spending by big corporations such as GE or Microsoft. A more likely scenario is that smaller corporations, without the resources needed to legally avoid the prohibitions that Citizens United overturned, may now enter the election arena. . . .

At the end of the day, the key question will be whether we the voters, who are the targets of all this spending, will be able to rise to the challenge of filtering this increased volume of messages. Regardless of how much corporations can and do spend, it is up to us as individual citizens, not any corporation or union, to decide which candidates we elect.

Indeed.