Might the Ban on Corporate Spending Someday Be Abolished?
In the end, it seems we want to have our Doritos and eat them too: We want to limit corporate money in the electoral process, but also protect the freedom of the press through a media exemption. The line may lead to absurd line-drawing problems as in the case of The Colbert Report, but it is a line that will have to be drawn periodically, if we want to keep both of these principles in our law. Some people, however, advocate simply junking the corporate-spending ban. They believe that it is a First Amendment violation to limit the spending of corporate money on the electoral process. If General Motors wants to write a $100 million check to a presidential candidate, they say, that should be just fine, and the Supreme Court’s earlier decision upholding limits on corporate campaign funding should be overruled. One day soon, the argument to allow unlimited corporate campaign spending could get a hearing before the Supreme Court. And the Court, with its two new conservative justices, Chief J
