George Will: PACS may be super, but they can’t crown a king

Syndicated columnist George Will discusses the effects of the Citizens United decision:

The people currently hysterical about super PAC money in politics blame the 2010 Citizens United decision, wherein the Supreme Court held that corporations and unions can spend unlimited amounts on political advocacy as long as they do not coordinate with candidates. The court’s logic was that individuals do not forfeit their First Amendment speech rights when they come together in corporate entities or unions to speak collectively. What is the constitutional basis for saying otherwise?

This decision’s practical effect is primarily in empowering unions and incorporated nonprofit advocacy groups such as the Sierra Club and the National Rifle Association. But The New York Times, which cannot have read it, says (Jan. 10) Adelson’s spending “underscores” how Citizens United “has made it possible for a wealthy individual to influence an election.” Many columnists and commentators embrace this solecism.

Actually, Citizens United has nothing to do with Adelson and others who are spending their own money, not any corporation’s. People have done this throughout the nation’s life, and doing so was affirmed as a constitutional right in the court’s 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision. Critics of super PACs – critics who were remarkably reticent in 2004 when George Soros was lavishing his own money on liberal advocacy – often refer to them as “outside groups,” much as Southern sheriffs used to denounce civil rights workers as “outside agitators.” Pray tell: Super PACs are outside of what? Is the political process a private club with the parties and candidates controlling membership? It might be more wholesome for the speech-financing money that is flowing to super PACs to go instead to the parties or candidates. But the very liberals who are horrified by super PACs (other than Barack Obama‘s) have celebrated the laws that place restrictions on such giving.

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