LOWDOWNEdited by Jim Hightower and Phillip Frazer � Vol.12 No. 3 � March 2010

The

“FOR TOO LONG,” wailed the senator in a heart-tugging cry for justice, “some in this country have been deprived of full partici-pation in the political process.”

itch McConnell, the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate,has never been mistaken for a bleeding-heart liberal, soyou can rest assured that his anguish over inequality didnot concern the disenfranchisement of minorities or poorpeople—or any kind of people, for that matter. No, it is thetragic political deprivation faced by America’s corporations

that moved Mitch to such an outpouring of woe.And you thought compassionate conservatism was dead.McConnell was expressing his solidarity with the five Supreme Court

justices who ruled on January 21 that our poor corporate citizens arevictims of a crass “censorship”

unjustly imposed on them by local, state, and national campaign-spending laws. “Let Corporations Speak,” chanted the Supreme Five. “Free the Corporate Money,” they demanded.

And lo, they made it so. In the case of Citizens United v. Federal ElectionCommission, these five judicial contortionists perverted the Constitution, acentury of the Court’s own precedents, common sense, logic, and the lawsof nature to decree that inanimate, corporate entities must be granted thehuman right to “speak” in the political arena. Never mind that a corporationis nothing but a legal construct created by the state and has no mouth,tongue, or brain for speaking—the Court fabricated a political voice for

these paper inventions by declaringthat their money is their

language.Thus, not only can

the living, breathingexecutives of corpora-tions continue dump-

The Supreme Court’s black-robed coup

Giving corporations more power to buy politicians of their choice

While Americandemocracy is imperfect,few outside the majority of this Court would have

thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate

money in politics. —— JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS,

dissenting from the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. FEC

❛❛

❜❜

M

1003Lowdown_final.qxd 2/27/10 1:58 PM Page 1

SCREWBALLSCORPORATE WONDERLAND

So, corporations arenow “people.” Whilethese inanimate paperconstructs have no brain,heart, or soul, the five ide-ological screwballs on ourSupreme Court say thatcorporations henceforthhave a First Amendmentright to “speak” in anyelection by spendingunlimited cash to elect or defeat candidates.

This issue of theLowdown is all about thedisastrous impact thescrewballs’ decision willhave on the democraticsovereignty of us actualpeople. But the Court’sidea of turning corporateentities into persons hasalso unleashed a gusher ofexcellent thoughts fromhuman-type persons. Forexample, will same-sexcorporations be allowed tomerge? And if corporationsare people, shouldn’t theyhave to face getting draftedinto the army, just like peo-ple people? And since the13th Amendment prohibitsslavery, which is owner-ship of a person, don’t wenow have to shut down thestock market, where corpo-rations are bought andsold? It’s a new civil-rightsbattleground—“Free theCorporate Slaves! Now!”

What’s next? If corpo-rations have the FirstAmendment political rightto support candidates,how can they be deniedthe right to become candi-dates? Indeed, one corpo-ration, Murray Hill Inc.,has already filed for aMaryland congressionalseat. A Murray Hill execu-tive says that his corpora-tion simply decided to“eliminate the middleman,”and he’s urging other cor-porate brothers and sistersto take the political plunge.“We’re saying to Wal-Mart,AIG and Pfizer, if not you,who? If not now, when?” Allsorts of things might be pos-sible in the Supreme Court’sCorporate Wonderland.

ing millions of their own dollars intoelections (money that totaled morethan a billion dollars in the 2008cycle, meaning that corporate inter-ests already possess far and awaythe most dominant voice in shapingour public policies), but henceforth,the trillions of dollars held by the cor-porate entities themselves can alsobe poured into electioneering adsand other forms of “speech.”

Unpleasant impactsAll big-money corporations—

from Wall Street to Wal-Mart—nowhave permission to open the spigotsof their vast corporate treasuriesand funnel unlimited sums of cashinto campaigns to elect or defeatcandidates of their choice for any(and every) office in the land. It’stheir wildest wet dream come true.

Oh, tut-tut, assert some apolo-gists for the Court’s twisted decision,it’s not all that dramatic, becausecorporate funds still cannot godirectly to candidates. Instead, themoney has to go into “independent,”corporate-run campaigns. None ofthese efforts can be coordinated inany way with the candidates.

Well, tut-tut yourself—this sepa-rate arrangement is worse, for it freesthe corporate political effort from anymitigating forces that might existwithin a candidate’s campaign.People who run for office usuallymust balance their corporate supportwith at least a show of concern forthe environmental, consumer,worker, and other constituencies intheir districts. Now, however, corpora-tions will effectively become the main“candidate” in any particular race, forthey’ll have much more money (and,therefore, a far louder “voice”) thanactual candidates. The control of acampaign’s message and tone willshift from office seekers to the inde-pendent effort designed and run bycorporations and their front groups.

Tut-tut again, say the apologists,insisting that it is irresponsible pop-ulist rabble-rousing to say that theCourt’s revisionist ruling “will open thefloodgates for special interests...tospend without limit in our elections,”as President Obama put it. After all,they explain, the Court left in placethe requirements that campaignspending must be disclosed, andimage-conscious corporations willnot want the public to know that theyare out to elect a lackey or defeat amaverick. So, apologists say, exces-sive corporate spending will be self-regulating. Not to worry.

I was born at night, but it wasn’tlast night. Corporations are well prac-ticed at hiding their logos when they

need to, and they commonly pushtheir special-interest political agendasthrough associations and front groups(see last month’s Lowdown for sev-eral shining examples of corporatefronts). Outfits like the U.S. Chamberof Commerce and the Club for Growthwill serve as corporate campaigncloaks, as will specially created, front-of-the-moment groups with benignnames like “Save the American Way.”The chamber, for its part, assertedright after the Court’s ruling that it will mount the “largest, most aggres-sive” electioneering-spending burstin its history this year targeting thoseofficeholders who don’t march inlockstep with corporate interests.

By “corporate interests,” youmight assume that means our goodol’ made-in-the-USA brutes. Butnooooooo. When the Citizens Unitedcase was argued before the Courtlast year, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsbergasked specifically whether foreigncorporations would also get the rightto “speak” in our elections. Goodquestion—especially consideringthat foreign people are not allowed togive money or otherwise influenceour campaigns. The answer from theCourt’s corporatist majority was…silence. Slyly, the justices simplyevaded the question—and sincetheir decision did not overtly rejectparticipation by offshore corpora-tions, Justice John Paul Stevens saidin his dissent that the Court doesappear to have freed corporate for-eigners (but not human foreigners) toplay in our nation’s politics. So getready to welcome Lenovo fromChina, Citgo from Venezuela, Sonyfrom Japan, Bin Laden Constructionfrom Saudi Arabia—and so manymore—to spend freely in, say, a con-gressional race in your district.

The destructive impact of theSupreme Five’s dictate will plungeright into the heart of democraticgovernance, for it gives corporate lob-byists the political equivalent of anuclear weapon. Rather than merelyinfluencing elected officials withcampaign donations, corporate hiredguns will be able to intimidate them.Big Insurance, Big Oil, Big Pharma,Big Box Store, Big Banking, BigWhatever, have suddenly beenarmed with the unlimited, devastat-ing spending power of their practi-cally bottomless corporate treasur-ies.Their lobbyists can bluntly say to alawmaker, governor, mayor, or otherofficial, “You support what we want,and we’ll spend a million bucks to re-elect you. If you don’t, we’ll put ourmillions against you. Your choice.”

Yes, yes, say squirming apologists,but don’t forget that the Court also

freed labor unions to take their mem-bers’ dues money and spend it ontheir own independent campaigns.So, see, the ruling justices took spe-cial care to be “fair and balanced.”

Where have we heard that phrasebefore?

Even if it were possible for allunions to scrape together everydime they have and spend it all onelections, their money would barelyfill a #2 bucket, compared to theNiagara Falls of wealth available tocorporations. For example, WallStreet’s biggest bank, GoldmanSachs, paid three times more inbonuses to its top bankers this yearthan the $6 billion in total assets heldby America’s unions—indeed, com-

bined union assets represent only

one-tenth of one percent of the

assets held by our country’s four

largest banks. Balance?Thanks to the Court, corporate

power just became controllingpower, for the five-man majority hasequated our nation’s hallowed free-dom of speech with the freedom to spend money on elections. Thismeans that those with the mostmoney get the most speech. Fair?

In case anyone doubts who hasthe most money, note that just the100 largest corporations have annualrevenues of $13 trillion and they cannow tap this reservoir to spend asmuch as they want to elect policy-makers who will do their bidding.This is plutocracy, not democracy.

The usurpersWhat we have here is a black-robed

coup against the American people’sdemocratic authority, Who did this?Let’s call their names: Sam Alito.Anthony Kennedy. John Roberts.Antonin Scalia. Clarence Thomas.Teach these names to your children.

This gang of thieves did not cometogether by accident. From the timeof Ronald Reagan through George W,there has been a concerted campaignby super-wealthy corporate execu-tives and hyper-right-wing activist ide-ologues to assemble five Constitutionmuggers to do exactly what the major-ity did with Citizens United. Workingthrough the Federalist Society, CatoInstitute, Mercatus Center, Institutefor Justice, Heritage Foundation, andother obscure corporate-funded organ-izations, these interests have quietlyand steadily moved their disciples into every law school, the JusticeDepartment, White House positions,congressional staffs, and the federaljudiciary to spread their extreme lais-sez- faire dogma and position theirmovement to win Court seats.

Sometimes the corporate extrem-

2 Hightower Lowdown March 2010

1003Lowdown_final.qxd 2/27/10 1:58 PM Page 2

ists failed in their bids (the RobertBork debacle in 1987); sometimesthey barely made it (Clarence Thomasin 1991). But with Alito replacingSandra Day O’Connor in 2005, andwith Roberts’ ascension to chief justice that same year, they had theirpieces in place.

I hate to say “I told you so,” but for years the Lowdown has beenchiding liberals and Democrats forfocusing solely on social issues whenopposing a court nominee, rather thanhighlighting the nominee’s record of servitude to corporate power (forexample, see the August 2005 issue).Sure enough, the current corporatistmajority slid onto the top court (forlife!) with practically no scrutiny oftheir plutocratic beliefs and inten-tions. A review of their careers, cor-porate connections, writings, andopinions would have shown thatCitizens United was inevitable oncefive of these ideologues were seated.

“Conservatives”You might recall the political flap-

doodle that was manufactured lastyear by the right-wing scream machinewhen President Obama nominatedSonia Sotomayor to the Big Bench.Republican senators and a host of nat-tering pundits fell into drama-queenswoons of alarm because this learnedlady had openly declared that her lifeexperiences (naturally) helped shapeher sense of justice.

What this means, shrieked theswooners, is that she might be a“judicial activist” who would sup-plant the careful judgments of thefounders, previous court majorities,legislators, and the people them-selves with her own political views. In short, Sotomayor would “legislatefrom the bench.” Outrageous!

Conservatives, we’ve been toldover and over, don’t do this. For exam-ple, when nominated, all of the fiveSupreme corporatists now on the

Court solemnly and piously attestedthat they are conservatives whodeplore and abhor judicial activism.Take Chief Justice John Roberts, who promised under oath at his con-firmation hearing that, as a strict con-structionist, he would approach everycase with “modesty and humility,”never straining to expand the lawbeyond the founders’ divinelyinspired intentions.

“Judges are like umpires,” he tes-tified with charming self-deprecation.“Umpires don’t make the rules. Theyapply them.” Then, with an appropri-ately conservative chuckle, Robertsadded, “Nobody ever went to a ball-game to see the umpire.”

With Citizens United, however,umpire Roberts stormed from behindthe plate to bat clean-up for the cor-porate team. With the other fourbogus “conservatives,” he has madean astonishing assertion not merelyof judicial activism, but of rampagingjudicial arrogance.

These five hijackers of our FirstAmendment purposefully reacheddown into the court system lastspring to pull up an obscure, narrowlyfocused lawsuit (originated by a cor-porate-backed political front group),which they brazenly twisted into aconstitutional case (see Lowdown,September 2009). In less than a year,they rushed Citizens United to judg-ment, using it to impose their per-sonal political will over:

� The clear intention of the framers,most of whom despised andfeared antidemocratic corporateentities and believed in banningany political participation by them(note that the Declaration ofIndependence, the Constitution,and the Bill of Rights speak onlyof people, deliberately leaving the word “corporation” out of our nation’s founding documents);

� The repeated insistence by Congress

and presidents that corporate moneyhas no place in our democratic elec-tions—indeed, from Teddy Rooseveltforward, the federal government has outlawed corporate spending on elections; � The laws of 22 states and dozens

of cities that specifically prohibitcorporate funding of campaigns;

� The clearly established precedentsof the judiciary itself, with courtafter court affirming over thedecades that corporate moneycan and should be excluded;

� The consistent, 234-year belief ofthe American people that elec-tions are for humans, not for artifi-cial, autocratic, avaricious corpo-rate entities—a deeply held culturalprinciple affirmed most recently in a February Washington Post-ABCpoll showing that 8 in 10 Americans(including 76% of Republicans)oppose the Citizens United ruling,with 65% “strongly opposed.”When a cabal of five appointed

extremists, none of whom has everbeen elected to any office at all or had any direct experience with thecorrupting power of corporate cam-paign cash, blithely decides it knowsbetter than America’s founders, legis-lators, and electorate about how to run elections, that’s not conser-vatism. It’s the very definition ofswaggering judicial imperiousness.And it needs to be crushed, pronto.

What to do?Everything. This is The Big One,

the legalized coronation of corporatepower over our elections, government,economy, environment, media...overus. The Court has gouged a gapinghole in our democracy, and we haveto repair it. Several remedies are avail-able to us, and we must try them all.Choose one, choose three, choosewhat suits you—but do something.

First: Believe. There is an insidious

LOWDOWNThe

March 2010 Hightower Lowdown 3

I want to receive a full year of The Hightower Lowdown —12 issues in all—for an unbelievably ridiculous, low, low price.

� Send me one year of The Hightower Lowdown for just $15. (Seniors & students—$12.)

� Send me two years of the Lowdown for $27. (Seniors & students—$22.)

To give a gift of the Lowdown, enter the recipient’s name and address below and include your name and address on a separate sheet.

NAME

ADDRESS

CITY

ZIP

Mail this coupon with your payment to: The Hightower Lowdown, P.O. Box 20596, New York, NY 10011GE

TTHE

LOW

DOW

N! YES!

STATE

03/10

EDITORS: Jim Hightower, Phillip Frazer

RESEARCH: Laura Ehrlich CIRCULATION: John Ernst

COPY WIZ: Gwenda Blair ARTISTE: Matt Wuerker

GRAPHICS: Sahu Barron INTERWEB EMISSARY: Deanna Zandt

PUBLISHER: Phillip Frazer

The Hightower Lowdown (ISSN 1524-4881) is publishedmonthly by Public Intelligence Inc., 375 South End Ave#14P New York NY 10280. ©2010 in the United States.Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY. Subscriptions: 1 year, $15; 2 years, $27. Add $8/year for Mexico orCanada; add $12/year for overseas airmail. Back issues $2postpaid. Allow 4-6 weeks for receipt of first issue and forall subscription transactions. POSTMASTER: Send addresschanges to: The Hightower Lowdown, P.O. Box 20596,New York, NY 10011.

Moving? Missed an issue? Call our subscription folks toll-free at (866) 271-4900 or write lowdown@pipeline.com.Send us fan mail or hate mail at: P.O. Box 20596, New York,NY 10011 or editors@hightowerlowdown.org.

Printed with 100% union labor on 100% recycled paper.

LOWDOWNThe

REBEL AGAINST THE COUP

The groups below arefocusing on constitutionalamendments, publicfinancing of elections, and other strong, struc-tural steps. They have awealth of information andexpertise, many havegood grassroots outreachand several have specificactions you can take.Some will have contactswith other agitatedactivists in your area, soyou can link up, makefriends, and make change. �American Independent

Business Alliance,www.amiba.net�Brennan Center for Justice,

www.brennancenter.org�Buzzflash,

www.buzzflash. com �Center for Corporate Policy,

www.corporatepolicy.org�Center for Media and

Democracy,www.prwatch.org�Common Cause,

www.commoncause.org�Democracy Matters,

www.democracymatters.org�Liberty Tree Foundation,

www.libertytreefdr.org�Media Matters,

www. mediamatters.org�People for the American

Way, www.pfaw.org�Program on Corporations,

Law and Democracy,www.poclad.org�Progressive Democrats

of America, www.pdamerica.org�Public Campaign,

www. publicampaign.org�Public Citizen,

www.citizen .org�Reclaim Democracy,

www.reclaimdemocracy.org�Sunlight Foundation,

www. sunlightfoundation.com�U.S. PIRG, www.uspirg.org�Voter Action,

www.voteraction.org�Watchdog.net,

www.watchdog.net�You Street,

www.youstreet.org

The dissent by JusticeJohn Paul Stevens in theCitizens United case con-tains many gems of com-mon sense, legal logic, andpointed barbs. We haveposted it for your enjoymenton our website: www.hightowerlowdown.org.

1003Lowdown_final.qxd 2/27/10 1:58 PM Page 3

You can comment on stories in the Lowdown on the new and improved website

hightowerlowdown.org

PERIODICALSCLASS

Postage Paid atNew York, NY

The HightowerLowdownP.O. Box 20596New York, NY 10011

12:3 March2010

GIVING CORPORATIONS MORE POWER TO BUY

POLITICIANS OF THEIRCHOICE

2 Screwballs corporatewonderland

3 Rebel against the coup

4 Greedhead trophy up for grabs

Moving? Missed an issue?Please call or write us at: The Hightower Lowdown

P.O. Box 20596New York, NY 10011

lowdown@pipeline.comSubscribers’ toll-free

number: (866) 271-4900

GREEDHEAD TROPHYUP FOR GRABS

Sports writers had allbut ceded the coveted“Corporate GreedheadTrophy” to the Wall StreetBarons this year, but—Holy Cow—here come the Health Care InsuranceGiants!

To paraphrase my oldhigh-school football coach,“when the going gets ugly, the ugly get going”—and our country’s fivelargest health-insurancecorporations are definitelymaking a run for the trophy.They recently stunnedgreed-watchers with anannouncement that theyhad scored record profitsin 2009, totaling $12.2 billion. Wow—that’s a 56% hike in profits over theprevious year for UnitedHealth, Wellpoint, Aetna,Humana, and Cigna!

Wait, that’s not all. The Insurance Giants also booted 2.7 millionAmericans out of theirhealth plans last year, leav-ing these older and sickercustomers in the corporatedust. Then, in a power play,three of the five Giantsshifted more of their cus-tomers’ premiums out ofproviding medical care andinto corporate profits, exec-utive salaries, and admin-istrative overhead.

But the most spectac-ular play was a Hail Marypass by Anthem BlueCross, a California sub-sidiary of Wellpoint. Withthe company enjoying a91% increase in profits, its Anthem unit suddenlydemanded a 39% rateincrease—a price hike10 times more than the risein the actual cost of healthcare. What a move! Still, it won’t be easy for theupstart Insurance Giants toout-ugly the more sophisti-cated Wall Street Barons.But the great thing aboutthe corporate league isthat competition to be thenumber-one nationalgreedhead is always fierce—and insurance is defi-nitely in the running.

notion being spread that it’s over,that the deal has gone down andthere’s nothing we grassroots peo-ple can do. That’s not merely a con-temptible lie, it’s an insult to you andme, a crude attempt to repress therichly rebellious American spirit thatis in each of us. The only force thatever produces change is us—grass-roots people are the headwaters ofall democratic possibilities, so let’sput our minds to the challenge. Hereare a few suggested fixes:

AMEND THE CONSTITUTION. Yes,this is a huge, extremely difficult,long-term solution, but it is themost direct, most populist way toend the legalistic nonsense thatcorporations are “persons” withdollar-based “speech rights.” Twobig coalitions, made up of bothnational and local organizations(from Public Citizen to MainstreetMoms), have formed to get thisdone. FreeSpeechForPeople.org

is focused specifically on overrulingthe Citizens United decision with an amendment clearly stating thatCongress and states may denyfree-speech spending rights to corporations. MoveToAmend.org,

which is spearheaded by such out-side-D.C. groups as Liberty Tree,Reclaim Democracy, and Program onCorporations, Law and Democracy,is pressing for a broader amendmentstating that money is not speechand that only humans are “persons”with constitutional rights.

PUBLICLY FINANCE CAMPAIGNS. Anational policy of providing publicfunds to candidates who reject allprivate donations made sense evenbefore the Court’s decision, butnow it’s urgent. Based on the suc-cess of “clean election” laws insuch states as Arizona, Maine,New Mexico, and North Carolina,public funding offers an immediate

counter to the antidemocraticgusher of corporate money theCourt has unleashed. More than adozen national advocacy groups haverecently forged a bipartisan coali-tion, called FixCongressFirst.org,to promote a clean-elections policyfor congressional campaigns.

IMPEACH. The five perfidious twerpswho did this to us, our Constitution,and our historic democratic idealsought not be allowed to use theirblack robes as political shields.These guys have arrogantly abusedtheir power and willfully violatedthe public trust—and they will do itagain and again. Those who so cal-lously assault our democracy withtheir blatant servitude to narrow cor-porate interests should be called toaccount, which is the legal remedyprovided to us by the impeachmentprocess. Squeamish Democrats inWashington, ever attuned to corpo-rate sensibilities, will shy from suchdirect confrontation. However, thepeople of our great country deservenothing less. The “reasoning” of thefive signatories to this coup was alegal farce—at the very least, theauthor of the opinion (Kennedy) orthe ringleader of the coup (Roberts)should be called before the bar ofrepresentational democracy and bemade to answer such technicalquestions as “What the #@!$%were you thinking?”

INTERIM STEPS. While pursuing thestructural reforms outlined above,some tourniquets can be applied tolimit the bleeding from the woundinflicted on our democratic elec-tions by Citizens United. First, amajority of all shareholders shouldbe required to approve every singlepolitical expenditure from corporatefunds. After all, the money thatwould be spent does not belong to the executives, but to these

investors. They are a widely diversegroup (retirees, union members,consumers, environmentalists, etal.) whose political interests oftendiverge from those of a CEO, andtheir money should not be spentwithout their specific approval.

Other patches include banningforeign-owned corporations frompolitical spending, requiring corpora-tions to disclose their funding of ads,and prohibiting electioneering by gov-ernment contractors and certain othercorporations. The problem with suchregulatory approaches is that corpo-rate lawyers and lobbyists areexperts at punching loopholes inthem. Still, we need to try everything.

Make noiseStreet protests? Yes. Letters,

phone calls, emails? Of course—toeveryone you can think of. Spreadthe word? By all means (distributethis issue of the Lowdown, get yourfriends and coworkers to discuss itwith you, etc.). Challenge Congresscritters? Absolutely—let them knowthat this is big for you and that youexpect real action by them. Pushyour local groups and public officialsto get informed and involved?Definitely, for this is a time whenpushy might make a difference.

Mainly, trust yourself and realizethat you are not alone. Reach out toothers—this radical power play bythe Court offers a rare teachablemoment about the dangerous reachof America’s corporate elites. Trueconservatives (and even many of thetea-bag mad-as-hellers) can’t like thisdecision, so don’t hesitate to enlistthem, too. Finally, connect withnational groups, but don’t wait onthem to tell you what to do. The bestideas for action are likely to comefrom your own grassroots connec-tions and discussions. Meet up—and get moving.

4 Hightower Lowdown March 2010

1003Lowdown_final.qxd 2/27/10 1:58 PM Page 4