Citizens United & Campaign Finance Reform

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in January 2010, allows corporations (and unions) to pour unlimited money into election ads. Prior to the Citizens United decision, for almost a century, campaign contributions were limited by a series of laws whose goal was preventing special interests from "buying" elections. The most recent of these laws was the bipartisan McCain-Feingold Law of 2002.

In order to balance the effects of the Citizens United decision, the Democrats in the Senate sponsored the Full Disclosure Act. Full disclosure of major donors funding a campaign ad is critical information for voters in assessing the interests behind, and accuracy of, the political message. The Senate's proposed Disclosure Act would allow the public to monitor whether official favors and privileges are being doled out to those paying for campaign ads.

When the Disclosure Act recently came up for a vote, a Republican filibuster prevented consideration of the bill. Several Republican senators have a long history of supporting transparency in campaign finance. Unfortunately, none of them stood behind that principle when it came to a vote on the Disclosure Act.

Now some are reporting record levels of corporate money in elections this year, and the funding sources behind this tidal wave of ads remains largely hidden. Some say the current data available on contributions to candidates campaigning for Congress in the midterm elections indicates an overwhelming advantage for Republican candidates over Democratic candidates.

In addition, there are Democratic claims that the National Chamber of Commerce is using monies contributed to them by undisclosed foreign countries and corporations to fund massive political ad campaigns for Republican and Tea Party candidates.

Many consider this a confirmation of what many Americans feared about the Citizens United decision—the end of a long quest for campaign finance reform that sought fair and balanced elections.

Assign students to explore the Pro or Con side of campaign finance reform initiatives. (SIRS is the key to diving deeply into both sides of this heated debate.)

Students should address the essential question for critical thinking included with either side of this issue, citing at least three resources. SIRS provides unique report and presentation models that support the SIRS critical thinking process.

Open the issue using the pathfinder below. Integrated into the Issue is access to these models by clicking My Analysis and clicking the report model link on the right margin.

Click the Visual browse link > Economics, Business, and Law > Election Issues > Campaign Funds

• Report/Presentation Models: Click the Research Guides icon within each issue—Research Guide for Critical Thinking; Writing a Mini-Research Paper; Creating a PowerPoint Presentation; Creating a Debate Outline.
  
  
• Critical Thinking Support: Click within the Research Guides option > iThink - 21st Century Skills Tutor—An engaging interactive tutorial with built in instruction, assessment and critical thinking prompts.
  
  
• Notes Organizer: Click the Notes Organizer icon.

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