Supreme Court Decision - a Big Blow to Our Democracy

By Adonal Foyle

Editor's note: The following is a blog post by Adonal Foyle from the January 22 edition of the Orlando Sentinel. This season, he is a regular "Opinionator" for The Sentinel. You can read all of Adonal's posts by clicking here >

Yesterday the Supreme Court delivered a terrible blow to our democracy by ruling in the case of Citizens United vs. FEC that corporations have First Amendment protected rights to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections. For the first time in our history the Supreme Court has decided that corporations can use their huge treasuries to advocate for political outcomes. What we can expect to see is corporations doing even more of what they have done best over the last few years -spending millions of dollars to dominate the political agenda, advocate on behalf of their interests rather than the interests of the people, and “buy” their way to political control of our democracy.

Ten years ago I created a non-partisan organization called Democracy Matters (www.democracymatters.org) to encourage young people to become politically active and get involved with politics and the critical issues of our day. The secondary mission was to advocate for campaign finance reform — election reform that could help to eliminate the stranglehold of big money on our political system. The simple reason is that the proliferation of big contributions by a small number of special interests has made for bad policies. Wealthy individuals donate because they want something in return — usually a tax break or favor that benefits their corporation and/or themselves. What gets left out is ordinary Americans whose needs and concerns are just as legitimate.

Look, I believe that wealthy people with corporate interests should be able to have a say in politics, but they should NOT have more access and influence than any other citizen just because they can contribute big money to campaigns. It is those donations that give corporations and wealthy individuals greater power over legislation. To take just one example, Halliburton may have been the right company to lead the rebuilding of Iraq, but can anyone with a straight face tell me that they would have gotten those no bid contracts if the vice president of the United States, Dick Chaney, were not previously the head of Haliburton and if representatives of the company had not given millions of dollars to the Bush/Cheney campaign? My conclusion is that their political contributions put them ahead of everyone else, just as campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans in Congress influence their votes as well. That is just not fair, and certainly not what our founding fathers had in mind.

Money should not be the determinant of who can run for office or get elected. Our democracy represents our most sacred treasure and as such much be protected from a market driven dynamic. I would argue that people die every day in defense of our democracy, and that is a very good reason to fight to maintain her integrity. The Supreme Court initially argued in its 1976 Buckley v. Valero decision that money equals free speech. Yesterday’s ruling in effect invites Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Mark Cuban, Ted Turner to talk far more that the rest of us by virtue of their huge corporate treasuries. I believe we need to change campaign finance laws to give candidates the option to run by raising small donations and receiving a public grant. The Congress is considering such legislation right now. We can’t have corporations drowning out the voices of ordinary Americas. Democracy Matters has fought for a voluntary public funding option for candidates like those successful systems that are working in many states right now. This fight has been a great one because this is not a Republican or Democratic issue or the left vs. the right; this is a good governance issue – it’s about democracy.

As outrageous as yesterday’s decision was, in the words of my mom, “Don’t mourn. Organize.” We must call on President Obama to fix the Presidential public financing system and on Congress to pass the “Fair Election Now Act”—both of which will curb the power of big money in politics and restore trust in our system of government.

- Adonal