People have a right to unlimited spending on their own political speech.

My opponent explained this in the next round, and I didn"t think that it was necessary to get into the details. One last point regarding Pro"s precedent: as pro points out, the headnote in Santa Clara doesn"t hold much weight as part of the decision, and the two cases which I presented are examples of cases which denied equal protection to corporations (under the Privileges and Immunities Clause [which inspired the Fourteenth Amendment] and under the Fourteenth Amendment itself) that preceded any actual "corporate personhood" cases that could be cited. "Again, so long as the group"s views are consistent with its purpose, its dissidence is legitimate. " One point that I was going to make about the NAACP in the last round, but which wasn"t made for lack of space, was that the NAACP is a non-profit corporation which is made up of people with similar political goals. In this case, it is easy to discern the "authorized intent" of NAACP"s members on a political issue. On the other hand, a for-profit corporation like Apple has a different purpose " to sell i-phones, macs, and other Apple products. Apple workers, managers, executives and stockholders aren"t connected by common political views. So when Apple"s leaders decide to take any political stance(and spend money on it), without having the people who"s money they are spending (both the investors and workers who generate profits with their capital and labor) take a vote, that is illegitimate. It is undemocratic to the folks involved in Apple. And it undermines our democracy, esp. when Apple"s executives are using a disproportionate amount of influence on our process. I also have to take issue with the word "dissidence. " In some cases corporations may disagree with a proposed policy, but oftentimes they are pushing for their own (often cushy) policies. Now, they have every right to speak in favor of a certain policy, but when their money (which my opponent points out is not equivalent to speech) is used to bribe politicians, that"s a problem. And when 5.8 billion dollars in political spending yields 4.4 Trillion dollars in tax-payer funded support, that"s a damned big problem. And I"m a dissident who"s speaking out against Corporatist corruption, and my speech is rendered useless because it"s being drowned out by political "speech" (spending). "To suggest that we ordinary folk have "a minimal if [not] nonexistent causal impact on public policy," as my opponent does, is to make a rather heavy, fatalistic claim that is at best, rhetorical; at worst, self-defeating. " I was paraphrasing the Princeton study, which looked at 1779 policy issues and surveys, and analyzed the impact that the average voter"s views have on policy. Diagnosing a problem is not defeatist, especially when there are cures. Pretending the problem doesn"t exist, and arguing that dealing with it is unconstitutional is extremely defeatist. A vote for pro is a vote for more plutocracy. " Petitioning, protesting, and other means of addressing sociopolitical issues (means all protected by the First Amendment, I should note) all serve to dissent. .. " Remember when my opponent insisted that spending money was a necessary part of speech? Remember when I pointed out that I am capable of making youtube videos, going to protests, writing, phoning, and even tweeting [to] members of Congress " actually saying things, without spending vast sums of money to bribe (or scare) people into going into line. (Remember, wealthy companies and individuals don"t only promise to help politicians, they also warn politicians that voting the wrong way can result in millions of dollars being spent on attack ads). Well, apparently my opponent agrees with me that "civic engagement" is possible without money" If so, then money isn"t a vital and necessary resource for speech. Monsanto executives can organize a march for subsidizing agribusiness; Citibank Executives can attend an "Americans who want another too big to fail bailout" rally; Merck Execs can sign a petition to put Vioxx back on the shelves, you get my idea. And if that is the extent of Corporate speech, I don"t have a problem with it, because it"s the same speech that"s accessible to me. Once we"re talking about large amounts of money, well, that isn"t "speech" that"s corrupt. "As for the matter of legislators being distracted with fundraising, my opponent uses a red herring to evade the issue, which, once again, does not extend to donations. " PACS or SuperPACs that are being exclusively run by a corporation or a wealthy individual can (under the resolution) spend as much money as they please on a political race. With that kind of money potentially being spent for or against a politician, said politician will have to spend more time on the phone (and be more beholden to monied interests). " Indeed, the problem stems in part from reform itself: raising large amounts of money from a greater number of donors with less money each (as would result from reform) would actually increase the amount of time a political candidate must spend appealing to donors. " The thing is, that before Citizens United, politicians were spending less time telemarketing to potential donors. Former DCCC chair Steve Israel stated, ", I"ve spent roughly 4,200 hours in call time, attended more than 1,600 fund-raisers just for my own campaign and raised nearly $20 million in increments of $1,000, $2,500 and $5,000 per election cycle. And things have only become worse in the five years since the Supreme Court"s Citizens United decision, which ignited an explosion of money in politics. .'" [1] This is because once the gates were opened, the money came flooding in. Politicians know that their opponent"s will often have access to more money than they previously did, and that they can only stay in office if they raise a similarly high amount. Furthermore, there is always the option of public funding " which will be more viable to incumbents and challengers alike when less money is being spent by each side. "concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment" (424 U. S. 1, 48-49). Well this would be a very cutting remark if it were relevant to the issue of political spending. But restricting spending is not the same thing as restricting speech. Protest. Petition. Try to make a video go viral. Do what you want " say whatever you want. But don"t directly (through campaign contributions) or indirectly (through spending on a PAC or SuperPAC or a political "charity") bribe our elected officials! Another statement which is worth examining was made earlier in the debate, but it is an integral part of Pro"s argument. Pro has said that since money is a resource necessary to speech, any limits on such resources are unconstitutional. If we accept that this is true, then taxes are un-Constitutional. After all, if money is a resource necessary for speech, and if "limiting access" to that resource violates free speech rights ("If we hold that (1), it seems only to follow that government ought not to limit access to resources necessary to engage in politics. Primary among these resources is money": Pro, round 1), then it follows that taxes, which reduce the amount of money available for "speech" would be against the Constitution. Needless to say, this would render government incapable of funding itself, or even existing. Furthermore, if we accept my opponent"s argument about "an attack on speaker identity" in conjunction with Pro"s argument about money being necessary for speech, then it follows that a Progressive Income Tax (or a high Corporate tax rate) would be doubly un Constitutional. After all, certain political actors would have their political resources limited because of who (and how wealthy) they are. You can think of something "doubly un-Constitutional": it would be as constitutional as a bacon cheeseburger is Kosher. Last but not least, my opponent has provided no links for claims about the top 100 companies barely spending money on politics. Even if this is the case, it"s a rather restrictive list, (folks usually talk about fortune 500 companies) and it ignores the hard reality that the top 200 politically active companies spent 5.8 billion dollars on the political process and got 4.4 Trillion dollars in subsidies. P. S. I would like to note that this argument was written before I accidentally forfeited round 4 during the last time we debated this issue. After that occured, Parsimony23 was kind enough to agree to redo this debate. The debater in me is naturally very compettitive, especially on a topic which I feel strongly about; which is why I haven't edited the (I believe) extensive arguments I made prior to the accidental forfeit. On the other hand, I feel guilty for leaving those arguments in their present condition. Further, I must commend Parsimony 23 for not only giving this debate a second chance, but for doing so while he was feeling under the weather, and during his first week of classes at (I presume) a law school. Again, I hope to convince my opponent to take my side on campaign finance issues during any appearance before the Supreme Court. [1]. . http://citizenscongress.us... On the issue of precedent, I may have seemed dismissive of Pro"s examples, but that"s because in the first round, if I had more space, I would have pointed out that "Dartmouth" was about contracts and never addressed corporate personhood persay, and that Santa Clara County never used that phrase either. My opponent explained this in the next round, and I didn"t think that it was necessary to get into the details. One last point regarding Pro"s precedent: as pro points out, the headnote in Santa Clara doesn"t hold much weight as part of the decision, and the two cases which I presented are examples of cases which denied equal protection to corporations (under the Privileges and Immunities Clause [which inspired the Fourteenth Amendment] and under the Fourteenth Amendment itself) that preceded any actual "corporate personhood" cases that could be cited. "Again, so long as the group"s views are consistent with its purpose, its dissidence is legitimate. " One point that I was going to make about the NAACP in the last round, but which wasn"t made for lack of space, was that the NAACP is a non-profit corporation which is made up of people with similar political goals. In this case, it is easy to discern the "authorized intent" of NAACP"s members on a political issue. On the other hand, a for-profit corporation like Apple has a different purpose " to sell i-phones, macs, and other Apple products. Apple workers, managers, executives and stockholders aren"t connected by common political views. So when Apple"s leaders decide to take any political stance(and spend money on it), without having the people who"s money they are spending (both the investors and workers who generate profits with their capital and labor) take a vote, that is illegitimate. It is undemocratic to the folks involved in Apple. And it undermines our democracy, esp. when Apple"s executives are using a disproportionate amount of influence on our process. I also have to take issue with the word "dissidence. " In some cases corporations may disagree with a proposed policy, but oftentimes they are pushing for their own (often cushy) policies. Now, they have every right to speak in favor of a certain policy, but when their money (which my opponent points out is not equivalent to speech) is used to bribe politicians, that"s a problem. And when 5.8 billion dollars in political spending yields 4.4 Trillion dollars in tax-payer funded support, that"s a damned big problem. And I"m a dissident who"s speaking out against Corporatist corruption, and my speech is rendered useless because it"s being drowned out by political "speech" (spending). "To suggest that we ordinary folk have "a minimal if [not] nonexistent causal impact on public policy," as my opponent does, is to make a rather heavy, fatalistic claim that is at best, rhetorical; at worst, self-defeating. " I was paraphrasing the Princeton study, which looked at 1779 policy issues and surveys, and analyzed the impact that the average voter"s views have on policy. Diagnosing a problem is not defeatist, especially when there are cures. Pretending the problem doesn"t exist, and arguing that dealing with it is unconstitutional is extremely defeatist. A vote for pro is a vote for more plutocracy. " Petitioning, protesting, and other means of addressing sociopolitical issues (means all protected by the First Amendment, I should note) all serve to dissent. .. " Remember when my opponent insisted that spending money was a necessary part of speech? Remember when I pointed out that I am capable of making youtube videos, going to protests, writing, phoning, and even tweeting [to] members of Congress " actually saying things, without spending vast sums of money to bribe (or scare) people into going into line. (Remember, wealthy companies and individuals don"t only promise to help politicians, they also warn politicians that voting the wrong way can result in millions of dollars being spent on attack ads). Well, apparently my opponent agrees with me that "civic engagement" is possible without money" If so, then money isn"t a vital and necessary resource for speech. Monsanto executives can organize a march for subsidizing agribusiness; Citibank Executives can attend an "Americans who want another too big to fail bailout" rally; Merck Execs can sign a petition to put Vioxx back on the shelves, you get my idea. And if that is the extent of Corporate speech, I don"t have a problem with it, because it"s the same speech that"s accessible to me. Once we"re talking about large amounts of money, well, that isn"t "speech" that"s corrupt. "As for the matter of legislators being distracted with fundraising, my opponent uses a red herring to evade the issue, which, once again, does not extend to donations. " PACS or SuperPACs that are being exclusively run by a corporation or a wealthy individual can (under the resolution) spend as much money as they please on a political race. With that kind of money potentially being spent for or against a politician, said politician will have to spend more time on the phone (and be more beholden to monied interests). " Indeed, the problem stems in part from reform itself: raising large amounts of money from a greater number of donors with less money each (as would result from reform) would actually increase the amount of time a political candidate must spend appealing to donors. " The thing is, that before Citizens United, politicians were spending less time telemarketing to potential donors. Former DCCC chair Steve Israel stated, ", I"ve spent roughly 4,200 hours in call time, attended more than 1,600 fund-raisers just for my own campaign and raised nearly $20 million in increments of $1,000, $2,500 and $5,000 per election cycle. And things have only become worse in the five years since the Supreme Court"s Citizens United decision, which ignited an explosion of money in politics. .'" [1] This is because once the gates were opened, the money came flooding in. Politicians know that their opponent"s will often have access to more money than they previously did, and that they can only stay in office if they raise a similarly high amount. Furthermore, there is always the option of public funding " which will be more viable to incumbents and challengers alike when less money is being spent by each side. "concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment" (424 U. S. 1, 48-49). Well this would be a very cutting remark if it were relevant to the issue of political spending. But restricting spending is not the same thing as restricting speech. Protest. Petition. Try to make a video go viral. Do what you want " say whatever you want. But don"t directly (through campaign contributions) or indirectly (through spending on a PAC or SuperPAC or a political "charity") bribe our elected officials! Another statement which is worth examining was made earlier in the debate, but it is an integral part of Pro"s argument. Pro has said that since money is a resource necessary to speech, any limits on such resources are unconstitutional. If we accept that this is true, then taxes are un-Constitutional. After all, if money is a resource necessary for speech, and if "limiting access" to that resource violates free speech rights ("If we hold that (1), it seems only to follow that government ought not to limit access to resources necessary to engage in politics. Primary among these resources is money": Pro, round 1), then it follows that taxes, which reduce the amount of money available for "speech" would be against the Constitution. Needless to say, this would render government incapable of funding itself, or even existing. Furthermore, if we accept my opponent"s argument about "an attack on speaker identity" in conjunction with Pro"s argument about money being necessary for speech, then it follows that a Progressive Income Tax (or a Corporate tax) would be doubly un Constitutional. After all, certain political actors would have their political resources limited because of who (and how wealthy) they are. You can think of something "doubly un-Constitutional": it would be as constitutional as a bacon cheeseburger is Kosher. Last but not least, my opponent has provided no links for claims about the top 100 companies barely spending money on politics. Even if this is the case, it"s a rather restrictive list, (folks usually talk about fortune 500 companies) and it ignores the hard reality that the top 200 politically active companies spent 5.8 billion dollars on the political process and got 4.4 Trillion dollars in subsidies. P. S. I would like to note that this argument was written before I accidentally forfeited round 4 during the last time we debated this issue. After that occured, Parsimony23 was kind enough to agree to redo this debate. The debater in me is naturally very compettitive, especially on a topic which I feel strongly about; which is why I haven't edited the (I believe) extensive arguments I made prior to the accidental forfeit. On the other hand, I feel guilty for leaving those arguments in their present condition. Further, I must commend Parsimony 23 for not only giving this debate a second chance, but for doing so while he was feeling under the weather, and during his first week of classes at (I presume) a law school. Again, I hope to convince my opponent to take my side on campaign finance issues during any appearance before the Supreme Court. [1]. . http://citizenscongress.us...