discussion

Jack:

· Should the First Amendment protect corporate political expression? Why or why not?

·

· Of course the First Amendment should be able to protect the corporate political expression but within reason.  The Citizens United decision gave to much political influence towards corporations and unions to allow them with much more funding available to push for their position. The First Amendment should apply to the individual voters and the corporations equally.    

· Honestly, I think that the First Amendment should protect corporate political expression and the individual voter equally. Within the United States we have the right to freedom of speech and the right to speak our mind. I think that corporations must be given the same free-speech rights under the Constitution as ordinary Americans to fund or defeat of political candidates equally.

· If not, where should you draw the line for corporations between freedom and restrictions?

2.

0. For the individual voter, I don’t think that there should be any restrictions as they have limited funding available to influence their position. As mentioned abovewithin the United States we have the right to freedom of speech and the right to speak our mind. I think that corporations must be given the same free-speech rights under the Constitution as ordinary Americans to fund or defeat political candidates but having the ability to spend millions of dollars on an ad campaign to attack a candidate that does not agree with a corporation should have some limits on what they can spend for this process to be fair and equal.

· If you were in charge of government relations at a business, what strategies would you now employ, in light of the Citizens United decision, to advance your position?

3.

0. When the Supreme Court passed the Citizens United ruling in January 2010 this change allowed corporations and unions the approval to be able to spend as much money as they wanted on political advertising.  This unlimited amount of spending for political candidates allowed the corporations and unions to either support or attack political candidates that either supported or did not support the direction that their corporation wanted to go towards to increase their profits as a company.  

0. If I was in charge of government relations at a corporation, I would be looking for candidates that were willing to support the company ideas, motivation and values for the future.  I could use these advertising funds to help support a candidate that would help my company out or we could attack and weaken a candidate that was not going to help the direction that we wanted our company to go in.  I would use the Citizens United ruling for my company to influence the political system by either attacking or supporting any candidate in the direction that the company wanted to go in to be more successful.

0. The perception of this ruling for the individual voter made them feel that big business can influence the political system and the voter voices will be over ridden by large corporation and or unions with all their funding at their disposal. My position in government relations would allow me the advantage to push for my company’s position more easily than in the past.

Barba:

Should the First Amendment protect corporate political expression? Why or why not?

I think that the first amendment should not protect the corporate political expression because of several reasons. One of the reasons is that the non-profit organization like Citizen United, which spend unlimited money on the election for direct advocacy for or against candidates, will lead to corruption where any big companies can buy and sell votes and political power. There will be much power over the direction of the country on the hand of few wealthy people and special interest group rather than vast majority of Americans. Although, corporation are required to disclose their spending on election there will be secret political spending where investors and shareholders of the company will be kept in the dark. If the first amendment protects corporation expression then it will harm democracy of the country.

If not, where should you draw the line for corporations between freedom and restrictions?

Democracy allow freedom of speech for everyone but there should be some line that limit the freedom of speech for protecting democracy itself. In this case, the line should be drawn on the maximum amount of money that could be spent by the corporation so that every citizen gets the equal right. And, the corporation should be transparent and disclose all their spending to public.

If you were in charge of government relations at a business, what strategies would you now employ, in light of the Citizens United decision, to advance your position?

The strategies that I would have employed to advance my company position are:

-Getting shareholders and investors approval for the corporate political expenditure over a certain amount (Steiner & Steiner, 2013).

-Educating general public on the political issues and collecting funds from them to represent their voice in congress.

References

Steiner, J. F., & Steiner, G. A. (2013). Business, government, and society: a managerial perspective ; text and cases. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Top 5 Ways Citizens United Harms Democracy & Top 5 Ways We're Fighting to Take Democracy Back. (n.d.). Retrieved April 27, 2017, from http://www.demos.org/publication/top-5-ways-citizens-united-harms-democracy-top-5-ways-we%E2%80%99re-fighting-take-democracy-back