Six Years After Citizens United, Call to 'Reclaim Democracy' Louder than Ever

On the sixth anniversary of Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that unleashed the scourge of dark and unlimited election spending into the political process, campaign finance reform advocates are spotlighting the tangible solutions that could loosen the stranglehold of corporate interests on U.S. democracy.

“The ruling has given voters fed up with the political system a concrete focus for their anger, and helped push the issue of money in politics from the margins to the mainstream,” Eliza Newlin Carney wrote for the American Prospect on Thursday. “The surging popular concern over political money has set the table for a serious discussion of what’s wrong with the system and how it can be fixed.”

Indeed, polls have shown that the overwhelming majority of Americans see the current campaign finance system as so flawed that it needs either fundamental changes or to be rebuilt completely. What’s more, a Monmouth University survey released last summer showed that only one in ten people in the U.S. thinks that the 2010 Citizens United decision has actually improved the process of nominating presidential candidates.

And according to a poll from political reform group Mayday.US, 91 percent of Democrats and 91 percent of Republicans believe that Super PACs and special-interest groups should have to disclose the source of their funding.

“Shareholders have a right to know how companies they invest in are spending their money, but corporations are keeping their political contributions secret.”
—Senator Elizabeth Warren

Such widespread dissatisfaction “has led to an extraordinary, community-by-community grassroots effort to reclaim our democracy,” law professor and former New York gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout wrote on Thursday, citing a “town-by-town, city-by-city” movement toward publicly funded elections that stretches from Seattle to Maine. However, she noted, “for real change we need the entire country to switch.”

On the national front, more than 1 million people have submitted public comments to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) calling for a rule requiring publicly held companies to disclose details of their political spending.

“Shareholders have a right to know how companies they invest in are spending their money,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on a call with reporters on Thursday, “but corporations are keeping their political contributions secret.”

Doing so is “fundamentally wrong,” she continued, as “it creates an elite that can use investors’ money to promote their own political preferences.”