SCOTUS decision a victory for free speech, but also Big Labor
Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was a welcome victory for free speech and the First Amendment.
By overturning byzantine prohibitions against the very type of fundamental electioneering speech most valued by our Founding Fathers when they drafted the First Amendment itself, the court reclaimed enormous territory in freedom’s war against incumbent-protecting censorship.
While welcome, however, the decision also carries political implications about which conservatives must remain alert. Liberals, predictably, hysterically focus upon the sinister prospect of free speech for those big, bad, evil corporations that actually employ people and produce things. For instance, resident MSNBC village idiot Keith Olbermann rendered himself not only the world’s worst person, but also the most idiotic, when he suggested the decision was even worse than the infamous Dred Scott slavery decision of 1857.
But apart from the Olbermann crowd’s inanity, one negative prospect is Big Labor’s new ability to engage in direct electioneering communications.
Don’t get me wrong—union bosses should be just as free as other groups to exercise their free speech rights, so long as the dollars used to fund that speech aren’t forcibly wrenched from reluctant members’ wages. As long as Big Labor isn’t afforded particularized protected status, fair is fair.
Nevertheless, expect new union efforts to not only flood the airwaves, but also to increase the amount of members’ dues used to fund those efforts, as well as even more pressure to enact legislative agenda items. In particular, we can anticipate all new efforts to enact card-check, which would literally eliminate the secret ballot in union elections, and empower federal bureaucrats to dictate wages and working conditions via mandatory arbitration. In 2008 alone, two unions—the AFL-CIO and SEIU—spent $58 million of their hard-working members’ wages on political campaigns.
They’ll only scheme to increase that amount now.
Card-check legislation appeared all but dead, but this device to increase Big Labor’s membership rolls, and consequently the amount of money it can spend electing liberals across the country, will receive even more push now.
I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision, but we conservatives must remain wary of Big Labor’s upcoming campaign.
Timothy Lee is Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs at the Center for Individual Freedom. This piece originally ran here.
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Unions are probably the most corrupt organizations in America. I can speak from personal experience. Look at MD and VA. Virginia is an open shop state and it’s industry and economy is constantly improving. Real estate is more successful there than MD can hope to be. Real Estate Moguls like Ted Lerner (Washington Nationals Owner) who are from Maryland end up building/buying more projects in VA because the union’s influence isn’t as strong there as in MD. From what I hear, real estate in MD is a pain in the ass. Developers have to make nice with the unions for support, which can get extremely tedious and unnecessary at times.
markchrist sounds like Tim Robbins in “Team America”: “Let me explain to you how this works: you see, the corporations finance Team America, and then Team America goes out… and the corporations sit there in their… in their corporation buildings, and… and, and see, they’re all corporation-y… and they make money.”
Corporations are not just NBC, ExxonMobil, etc. Businesses on Main Street USA are incorporated. Trade associations that represent every industry and interest–no matter how small or specialized–are incorporated. And both allow people to pool their resources to respond collectively to groups and individuals with which they disagree, or support those with whom they do.
This guy is insane and is so blinded by his hatred for unions. The real problem is the corporations, whether they are US-owned or not. A victory for free speech? More like you just lost your power to influence an election with your now meaningless campaign contribution. So now a CEO gets to give his personal amount and his corporate amount, while you can only give one time. This unfairly tilts the power to those with the most money. The CEOs now have more political power than you. It is the reverse of Double Jeopardy, and the activist conservative members of the SCOTUS went way beyond even the case before them to make new law. No mention of that? Just unions and how bad they are, even though they represent real hardworking Americans. Unlike this corporate ass-kiss.