Money is not speech however money can buy speech as it can many other things. This is why the court did not use that equivalency. If it had then it would’ve said that corporate contributions to Federal candidates was protected speech. Corporate speech is not necessarily a product of more wealth than personal speech. There are wealthy corporations as well as poor ones. Just about anybody can create a corporation for a few hundred dollars. But there are many things besides money which give people more influence on people’s decisions on who to vote for. Among these are celebrity, position, and popular expertise. Where do we draw the line on forced equality of speech?
Yes, there are significant differences between the Sierra Club and a for-profit corporation. Congress attempted to determine which corporations would be allowed to engage in speech promoting/opposing a candidate by limiting it to media corporations or to corporations with prior permission from the government. The Court found this was too arbitrary a distinction–that Congress had failed to make a clear distinction and the reasons for doing so. From reading the decision it seems to me that the Court just seemed to challenge Congress to come up with a constitutional way to determine why some corporations are allowed this speech and some aren’t.
Some corporations do have a lot of money but the executives have to show that their expenditures are for the profit of the corporation otherwise they can be sued by the shareholders and also diminish the value of the stock.
Perhaps what we are discussing is really moot. I don’t know of any corporation whose primary business is other than media and political commentary has actually taken advantage of the CU v FEC decision by campaigning for or against any Federal candidate. Does anyone else reading this know of one?
