A New Conversation about Citizens United

Love it or hate it, Citizens United v. FEC may be one of the Supreme Court’s most controversial decisions. It’s certainly the most talked-about since Bush v. Gore, and could have consequences even more profound and far-reaching.

Everyone in the progressive community seems to agree that Citizens United was a game-changing decision, and that the Supreme Court vastly overreached in the case that established unlimited corporate spending on elections as free expression.

But that’s where the agreement ends.

Writing in the Washington Post, author and law professor Kent Greenfield notes that progressives are pursuing lines of attack on Citizens United that are not only unlikely to succeed, but that could even make things worse:

There are ways to address inordinate corporate power in politics that avoid razing the house to rid it of termites. Many ramifications of Citizens United can be addressed with more aggressive disclosure rules, limits on political involvement of companies receiving government contracts, or mandates that shareholders approve political expenditures.

At the moment, there seems to be little agreement in the progressive community about the way forward after Citizens United, but Greenfield’s op-ed (and his follow-up in the Huffington Post) can spur a conversation that could help progressives find the path that offers the best chance at reform -- and that best serves the needs of our democracy.