I just saw this meme:
"First order of business for the Blue Tsunami Congress is to eliminate Citizens United.”
Short answer: there is no strong democratic or governance reason to keep Citizens United as-is, but there are arguments raised by opponents of repeal. Here is a clear, sober breakdown.
Why many argue it SHOULD be overturned
Massive distortion of democracy: It allows unlimited outside money via Super PACs and dark-money groups, letting billionaires and corporations drown out ordinary voters.
Lack of transparency: Many donors can remain hidden, undermining trust in elections.
Corruption risk: Even if technically “independent,” big spenders gain disproportionate influence, access, and policy shaping.
Not what “free speech” was meant to protect: Critics say the ruling equates money with speech and corporations with people in a way the Founders never intended.
Unpopular with Americans: Polling consistently shows broad public support (across party lines) for major campaign-finance reform.
Destabilizes governance: Encourages extremism and performative politics because outside spending rewards outrage and division.
Arguments typically raised AGAINST overturning it
First Amendment concerns: Supporters argue political spending is political speech, and government regulation of it risks censorship.
Who regulates and how? Overturning it requires either a constitutional amendment or a fundamentally different Supreme Court; crafting limits without empowering government to silence groups is tricky.
Unintended consequences: Regulation could end up benefiting entrenched political parties or wealthy self-funded candidates instead of improving fairness.
Money will still find a way: Wealthy interests may simply pivot to other channels if Citizens United is removed, so reform must be well-designed, not symbolic.
Bottom line There is a strong democratic integrity case for eliminating or significantly reforming Citizens United, and relatively weak public-interest justification for keeping it untouched. The real challenge is how to replace it with a system that protects free speech while restoring electoral fairness and transparency.
When Citizens United is overturned or re-structured, simply “fixing the ruling” without accountability for how it happened would leave the same forces in place to do it again.
Accountability here does not necessarily mean punishment; it means exposure, record-keeping, structural correction, and deterrence.
There are several layers of “who” enabled it:
1. The Supreme Court majority that engineered it
The Roberts Court did not merely decide the case as presented; it expanded it far beyond its original question to open the door to unlimited corporate spending.
Accountability here means:
Historical record and public understanding of how extraordinary that judicial activism was.
Ongoing ethics and legitimacy scrutiny (e.g., conflicts of interest, dark money influence shaping judicial ideology).
Long-term judicial reform discussions (term limits, ethics rules, transparency in amicus funding).
2. Political and ideological architects Citizens United was part of a decades-long conservative legal strategy funded by:
Corporate lobbying networks
Wealthy donors and foundations
Organizations like Federalist Society–aligned circles shaping judicial pipelines
Accountability here means:
Documenting who paid for that infrastructure.
Transparency requirements for judicial influence operations.
Public understanding that Citizens United did not “just happen”; it was designed.
3. The political class that benefited—and protected it Many lawmakers loudly criticize dark money while still using it. Both parties have, at various points, embraced Super PACs when convenient. Accountability here means:
Mandatory disclosure rules
Eliminating loopholes lawmakers rely on
Political courage to stop benefiting from what they claim to oppose
4. The failure of Congress to act after the ruling Congress could have:
Passed strong disclosure laws
Created public election funding options
Tightened corruption definitions
It did not. That failure deserves to be acknowledged.
5. Media and public conditioning For years, Americans have been told:
“Money is speech”
“Corporations are people”
Campaign finance limits are an attack on freedom
Part of accountability is cultural: naming the propaganda effort that normalized this.
Bottom Line
Yes, democracy benefits not only from reversing bad outcomes, but from:
Naming who engineered them
Exposing the financial and ideological machinery
Creating structural safeguards so it cannot simply be rebuilt
Otherwise, Citizens United becomes like many other U.S. democratic failures: briefly “fixed,” then slowly rebuilt by the same interests who designed it in the first place.
Bringing America around to be for our citizens, not only the power mad, rich, autocrats.
Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!
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