Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-2024
Abstract
In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court invalidated the longstanding ban on the expenditure of corporate funds in federal election campaigns. In so doing, the Court dismissed outright an argument that had long been the foundation for the restriction of corporate money in election campaigns — that, due to the “substantial aggregations of wealth amassed by the special advantages which go with the corporate form[,]” corporate money poses a distinct threat to the integrity of democracy. Instead, viewing corporations as essentially “associations of citizens,” Citizens United determined that “the First Amendment does not permit Congress to make … categorical distinctions based on the corporate identity of the speaker .... Government may not suppress political speech on the basis of the speaker’s corporate identity. No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.”
For now, at least, the corporate campaign contribution ban remains a part of campaign finance regulation in federal elections and in nearly half the states. This Article examines the history of corporate contribution regulation, its current status, and its potential future. Part II traces the ban’s statutory and doctrinal development. Part III analyzes how the courts over the last fourteen years have threaded the needle of sustaining the corporate contribution ban notwithstanding Citizens United. Part IV addresses other developments in the Supreme Court’s campaign finance jurisprudence that threaten the survival of the corporate contribution ban. Part V provides brief descriptions of possible alternatives to a corporate contribution ban. Part VI concludes with some speculations about the persistence of the corporate contribution ban.
Disciplines
Business Organizations Law | Election Law | Law
Recommended Citation
Richard Briffault,
The Surprising Survival – So Far – of the Corporate Contribution Ban,
3
U. Chi. Bus. L. Rev.
397
(2024).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/4549
Comments
This article was originally published in the University of Chicago Business Law Review: Vol. 3, No. 2, Article 6.