Campaign Financing Decision a Double-Edged Sword

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 — From the moment its 5-4 decision was announced, the opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court on Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission has been hailed as both historic and tragic.

Those media outlets representing the “middle class” are especially up in arms, simultaneously proclaiming their own failure while also insisting on their ongoing control.

But all the twisting and contorting being done by the “middle class” media and commentators does not change the meaning of the court’s decision ... or its dual character.

Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, caused a number of “middle class” pundits to scream “Orwellian!” with passages like, “It is well understood that a substantial and legitimate reason ... to cast a vote for, or to make a contribution to, one candidate over another is that the candidate will respond by producing those political outcomes the supporter favors.”

Without question, most of the criticisms of Kennedy’s and the U.S. Supreme Court majority’s opinion are accurate: they draw a crude equivalence between “free speech” and throwing money at a problem; they ignore the idea that massive corporate infusions of cash can be a corrupting influence; they deny that a candidate “owned” by a corporation is not, in fact, compromised at all.

But this blatantly class-partisan effort by the capitalist class to regain some more control over its own political life, in proportion to the “middle class,” is a double-edged sword.

While the Citizens United case does give capitalists almost unrestricted access and control over candidates, it also issues a blanket approval of any organization participating directly in the financing of candidates.

Any organization, like ... labor unions.

The Citizens United decision effectively struck down those provisions of the 1956 Landrum-Griffin Act that apply to unions directly contributing financially to elections.

It has been those laws that have been used by the union officials to avoid the establishment of a labor party in the U.S. With this decision, that excuse can no longer be used.

More importantly, though, is that future political actions by labor unions — be they business unions or revolutionary industrial unions, or somewhere in between — are not restricted by the limitations placed on them by Landrum-Griffin and similar laws.

This means that, as long as the “middle class” doesn’t successfully re-impose limitations on workers’ participation in electoral politics, when the revolutionary labor union movement chooses to endorse or put forward an independent workers’ candidates, they will be able to do so directly and openly.

This means that when the WIIU is ready to make a fight in the political arena, it will not have to jump through a thousand hoops just to get a fellow worker on the ballot.

Does this mean that there is now an “even playing field” between capitalists and workers in elections? Absolutely not! On the contrary, this double-edged decision still overwhelmingly favors the corporate wealthy and seeks to disenfranchise workers.

What it does do, however, is two things: 1) it frees working people from the long-standing dichotomy between corporate (capitalist) financing and “public” (“middle class”) financing, and exposes that there is a third alternative, and 2) it points to the potential that working people have if they use the power of their own organizations.

At the same time, there should be no illusion that this decision is either a victory or defeat for “democracy.” Far from it. If anything, the Citizens United decision exposes the inherent class character of “democracy,” and how it means different things to people from different classes and parts of classes.

We can learn from it, if we choose to.