While Citizens United held that corporations and unions could make independent expenditures, a separate provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act, at least as long interpreted by the Federal Election Commission, held that individuals could not contribute to a common fund without it becoming a PAC. The law, if passed, would also have prohibited political spending by U.S. companies with twenty percent or more foreign ownership, and by most government contractors. In 2002, Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), widely known as the McCain-Feingold Act, after its original sponsors, Senators John McCain of Arizona and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. "[100], Richard L. Hasen, professor of election law at Loyola Law School, argued that the ruling "is activist, it increases the dangers of corruption in our political system and it ignores the strong tradition of American political equality". [32] Furthermore, Stevens argued that corporations could threaten Representatives and Senators with negative advertising to gain unprecedented leverage, citing Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.,[43] (holding that $3 million in independent expenditures in a judicial race raised sufficient questions about a judge's impartiality to require the judge to recuse himself in a future case involving the spender). Campaign finance reform in the United States - Wikipedia The court's ruling effectively freed corporations and unions to spend money both on "electioneering communications" and to directly advocate for the election or defeat of candidates (although not to contribute directly to candidates or political parties). [32] Although the majority echoed many of the arguments in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, Stevens argued that the majority opinion contradicted the reasoning of other campaign finance casesin particular, of course, the two cases the majority expressly overruled, Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission. It also protects the right to peaceful protest and to petition the government. Citizens United changed campaign finance laws in the following ways: It removed the monetary limits that corporations and individuals can spend to independently influence an election. [61] On March 27, 2012, the ACLU reaffirmed its stance in support of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. Except for the Revolving Door section, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License by OpenSecrets.org. Citizens United vs. FEC - HISTORY Over 100 Texans testified before the Texas Senate on Thursday against Bill 147, which originally sought to prevent Chinese, North Korean, Iranian and Russian citizens from buying . He noted that "a recent Gallup poll shows that a majority of the public actually agrees with the Court that corporations and unions should be treated just like individuals in terms of their political-expenditure rights". Since the passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971, congressional action and court rulings have interacted to shape the rules of the road.
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