Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission

• For more than sixty years federal law has banned corporations from spending their treasury funds directly on elections. 

• With it's Jan. 21 decision, the Roberts Court turned back the clock.  Campaign reform advocates say this sets the stage for a deluge of corporate money in politics, and threatens to upend the role of citizens as the central force in our democracy.

• Since the Tillman Act of 1907, Congress has banned direct corporate contributions to federal electoral campaigns. Corporations, unions, and other big money players have since looked for ways to evade the prohibitions by spending money on independent expenditures – ads, mostly, favoring or opposing candidates thinly veiled as issue advocacy. 

• In the 2008 election, a group called Citizens United used direct corporate contributions to produce “Hillary, The Movie.” It was a promotional piece intended to be distributed as a pay-per-view movie and advertised on cable, much like a campaign ad. 

• The Federal Election Commission took action against the producers for violating the "electioneering communications" provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA, a.k.a. McCain-Feingold.)

• The decision overrules not just 2003’s McConnell v. FEC and 1990’s Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, but also a unanimous 1982 decision upholding Congress’ right to regulate the political activity of corporations differently than that of individual citizens (FEC v. National Right to Work Committee).