On balance, the Supreme Court's decision in Citizen's United vs FEC harms the election process

This resolution was no doubt influenced by the recent 2012 presidential election campaign which witnessed the rise of so-called super-PACs (Political Action Committees) and saw an unprecedented $6 billion spent overall, in the election process leading up the vote in November. A New York Times article, published in November 2012 summarizes the issue very nicely:"President Obama and his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, both raised more than $1 billion apiece. And the scale of outside spending was similarly staggering: more than $1 billion, about triple the amount in 2010.But while outside spending affected the election in innumerable ways — reshaping the Republican presidential nominating contest, clogging the airwaves with unprecedented amounts of negative advertising and shoring up embattled Republican incumbents in the House — the prizes most sought by the emerging class of megadonors, most of whom favored Republicans, remained outside their grasp. President Obama was re-elected, and the Democrats strengthened their lock on the Senate.The biggest single donor in political history, the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, contributed more than $60 million, but of the eight candidates he supported, none were victorious.Flush with cash, Republican-leaning groups outspent Democratic ones by an even greater margin than in 2010. But rather than produce a major partisan imbalance, the money merely evened the playing field in many races.Some advocates for tighter campaign financing regulations argued that who won or lost was beside the point. The danger, they argued, is that in a system reshaped by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, candidates and officeholders on both sides of the aisle are far more beholden to the wealthy individuals who can finance large-scale independent spending."While the tactics and negative attack ads used in the recent election campaign may have proven to have little influence this time in deciding the outcome of the election, one does not need to be a political science major to understand the potential harms which may arise from the influence of unlimited private, corporate, or union contributions to the campaign effort may have on political campaigns. While the messages churned out by the super-PACs may not have produced the desired results, one can easily see how such wide-spread political advertising could have a huge influence if the media could create messages which do sway voters. But more important than the influence such ads have on the American voter, is the influence super-PAC money has on the candidates. It seems to be a simple fact that campaigns which have the most financing seems to fare better and candidates may be tempted to provide political favors to large contributors. All right, let's not be so politically correct. Candidates DO favor large donors, granting them political favors.The potential debate around this resolution may deal with the influence America's elite have upon the political process to the exclusion of the lower socio-economic classes. Indeed, there is evidence, that private donations from lower social groups are down and many feel their contributions have little impact on the outcome of elections. The implications have already been debated by Public Forum debaters who examined the question of income disparity and its effect on democratic principles (December 2011). Certainly, the wider debate could touch on issues of threats to democratic ideals.On the other side of this debate, is the question of constitutional rights and free speech. The notion that corporations have limited free speech rights with respect to political campaigns is flawed. Most media outlets, newspapers, broadcast companies and publishers are parts of large corporations who freely and without restriction express their opinions about candidates and issues. So why are other corporations restricted from such speech? Supreme Court Judge Alito in a November 2012 speech explains:"The question is whether speech that goes to the very heart of government should be limited to certain preferred corporations; namely, media corporations. Surely the idea that the First Amendment protects only certain privileged voices should be disturbing to anybody who believes in free speech."Attorney Steve Simpson of the Institute for Justice sees attempts to limit speech by corporations as an exercise of political power by those who are already in power. He explains :"We often hear that “corporations aren’t people,” which, of course, is true. They are groups of people. More particularly, they are legal entities that are composed of and operated by people who have voluntarily associated with one another and who want to voluntarily associate with others as a legal entity. As such, corporations have the same legal rights as the people who compose them (at least those that people can exercise in cooperation with one another), no more, but no less. The motives of those who attack corporate speech and Citizens United are twofold. First is the desire for political power. Elections are the path to political power, so those who want that power try to control who can influence the outcome of elections. One way to do that is to restrict who can speak by restricting how they finance their speech."