LISTEN UP!
“Well,” my friend said to me, “It works both ways. The Democrats can benefit, too, by having corporations funnel money into their campaigns. Now, thank goodness, people without money can run for office. The way it has been... only rich people can mount campaigns for public office.”

After I decided not to be lead down that road in our discussion, I said, “That’s neither the point nor the problem with the Supreme Court’s decision that companies and unions are not banned from political spending in candidate elections. The concern isn’t that corporate money can now be used to help some poor, struggling but brilliant reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln get into office and save us. The point is that the Supreme Court has exacerbated an already serious problem. Lobbyists representing wealthy clients already have tremendous access and power in Washington and in State Houses all across the country. They already hold out and withhold financial support and advertising leverage to legislators. Before this new Supreme Court decision lobbyists already had tremendous legal power to funnel money and advertising to influence legislators of both parties. Now the Supreme Court, by a 5 to 4 vote has basically left the money spigot unguarded. Lobbyists can now say to legislators, “If you don’t vote the way my client wants you to vote, my labor union, my company, or my interest group has unlimited money to spend on advertising explicitly aimed as defeating you in your re-election. Abuses, now made legal” will be rampant among both Democrats and Republicans.”

My friend said, “It levels the playing field. Both parties can take advantage.”

I said, “However level the playing field, some games shouldn’t be played at all.”

My friend isn’t a rich man. He is comfortably well off. He is a good person. He’s a man who loves his country and shows it by wearing his flag pin not just on Sunday but everyday. He doesn’t like unions and says often that unions have been the biggest problem for Americans. He likes saying, “Look at Walmart. Now there’s a successful company. Everybody knows that company will be ruined if the employees there are allowed to unionize.”

I decide I won’t go down that road either, partly because there are plenty of examples of egregious abuse and unrestrained manipulation of elections by unions, and it doesn’t do any good in this discussion to name all the benefits both he and I have enjoyed because those benefits were won for us by unions. Of course we have a problem with abuses by some union bosses who are more interested in feathering their own nests than in getting a better life for workers, but this decision by the Supreme Court makes even those problems bigger and less likely to be solved anytime soon. Instead I try to make the same point I made earlier. “Lobbyists can tell a lawmaker that his union or corporation or industry has millions it can spend on advertising for or against him/her in a re-election campaign. The legislator has only to choose. Having lived in Washington and having known many senators and representatives as neighbors, I think I know how easy it will be for many of them to justify a decision to lean in the direction of the money.”

My friend asked, “What can be wrong with letting voters choose for themselves among many voices and ideas when they go to the polls. Isn’t it undemocratic to take away the voice of anybody, even collective voices that come out of organized interest groups and corporations?”

Of course, freedom of speech and individual rights must be protected. I enjoy the freedom to say anything I want to say in this BLOG. So I say to my friend, “I don’t like to see organized interest groups, even those to which I subscribe, have unlimited advertising power to influence candidates and political parties. Imagine what the attack advertisements will be like in future elections... and candidates themselves won’t have to take the criticism for dirty campaigning. A torrent of money and outrageous attacks can be financed by a union or a corporation or any interest group with deep pockets... without a candidate having to seem to be playing dirty. Democrats have been successful at getting big money from sympathetic billionaires and Hollywood money, and Republicans are traditional allies of big corporations and Wall Street; so I’m afraid both sides are likely to get much dirtier.”

President Obama called it “a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics.” My friend is never surprised when I say I like the President’s point of view.