Americans Are Mostly United Against Citizens United
When the Supreme Court issued the Citizens United decision, it allowed a torrent of unchecked dark money into political campaigning. Ordinary Americans of all political stripes have taken notice, and they overwhelmingly disapprove of the results.
According to a new report, a whopping 79 percent of Americans disagree with the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling. (Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call)
After years of record-breaking election spending, blatant influence-peddling at the highest levels of government, and pay-for-play access schemes starring some of the most powerful CEOs in the world, Americans have a pretty good idea of who’s pulling all the strings.
A new survey from campaign finance reform group Issue One finds that across the political spectrum, Americans overwhelmingly agree that Citizens United-enabled political action committees — which allow corporations and the wealthy to give unlimited amounts in campaign donations — spark corruption.
According to the report, a whopping 79 percent of Americans, including 74 percent of Republicans, disagree with the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, which found that unlimited campaign giving does not give rise to corruption or the appearance of it, nor does it cause citizens to lose faith in democracy.
The new survey results suggest otherwise: Roughly three in four Americans believe “if a wealthy donor or corporation gains influence over or access to an elected official, I consider that official to be corrupt,” and agree that unlimited campaign spending makes democracy weaker.
In Montana, voters could have a chance to preempt Citizens United and place hard limits on campaign donations, potentially reshaping national politics — and they are overwhelmingly eager to do so, according to Issue One. Compared to just 15 percent opposed, nearly three in four Montanans say they’d vote yes on a proposed ballot measure that uses decades-old Supreme Court precedent to clamp down on corporate power in the state, including election spending.
Nationally, a comparable proposal polled well across party lines, with 81 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans in support and just 12 percent of both parties’ voters opposed.
Citizens United didn’t create America’s corruption crisis — it completed it. Today’s flood of unchecked dark money political giving is the result of a fifty-year campaign by corporate power and wealthy ideologues to tear down the wall between public governance and private gain.