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The Importance Of Corporate Participation In Voting

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After Citizens United are the rules for corporate participation in elections still too strict, about right, or too relaxed? Why?"
Corporate participation in elections has had a long history in the nation’s political life. The rights of corporations are protected by the First Amendment and the restraints on them cannot be absolute. They have been very problematic and tend to be limited in effect. However, there is a strong public perception that the use of corporate’s money is undermining fairness in the government. It is said that the challenge is trying to balance the First Amendment right of corporations to free political expression against the societal interest of maintaining corrupt-free elections. In the Citizens United v. Federal Election …show more content…

Essentially the rules for corporate participation in elections are far too relaxed. “The Tillman Act was the first effort by Congress to protect the institution of free elections by restricting the entry of corporate wealth” (Steiner et al., 2012, p. 305). This act was supposed to make it illegal for a corporation to pay or contribute which would aid, promote, or prevent the nomination or election of any person. However, this Act turned out to become more of a loophole than its intended purpose as a law. It permitted corporations to set up political action committees, which were funded by individual contributions from employees limited to $5,000 per election cycle. The Citizens United is a political advocacy group that is funded by individuals, with 1 percent of its budget coming from corporate contributions. Its intentions are to inform the public about issues and to support conservative candidates. It produced a 90-minute documentary in 2008 which was titled Hillary: The Movie. I consider the rules for corporate participation to be too relaxed because it stated, “Since no ‘broadcast, cable, or satellite communication’ took place, these actions were not an ‘electioneering communication’ that violated the law” (Steiner et

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