The Supreme Court's decision in the case of Citizen's United vs. FEC (Federal Election Commission) has had a significant impact on how money factors into our elections.  It is important because it changed the rules on who could contribute money to political campaigns and how much money they can give.  Before this decision politicians were only allowed to receive a limited amount of money from private donors and none from corporations or unions. In the aftermath of this decision huge amount of corporate money flooded in to our campaigns. According to, the Los Angeles Times, in 2010 over $468 million dollars came into the presidential election, with over $288 million spent on ad attacking President Obama. These  Super Pac’s, set up to help solicit donations from unions, groups, organizations, and corporations, were the source of the majority of this money. Super Pac ‘s can’t support a candidate individually and what’s important  about Super Pac’s is that the law requires them to have a “quite loose”, which means that  the  donors don’t have to identify themselves or how much they donated.  This court decision made cooperation’s play the same role as an individual would in our political system. 

Most conservatives believe that this decision was a good thing and that corporations should be able to contribute as much money as they want.  They believe that this is just an exercise in free speech.  They believe that corporations are the same as people.  It should not matter who gives the money.  Supporters feel as though the Super PACs are good for the democracy because they believe that in a free and fair election anybody or anything should be able to bring as much influence as they want. This goes along with their general belief that government should be involved as little as possible in the decisions that people make.

Most liberals believe that this is a dangerous thing.  If corporations can spend as much money as they want on campaigns then they can drown out the voices of the people and buy the elections for their candidates.  People who see decision as dangerous fear that once this large amount of money gets into the system elected official will become so depended on it that they will stop listening to the regular voter.  Opponents also believe that corporations will always fund the “Pro-business” candidates.  Another point that opponents make is that this will make it very easy for the airwaves to be flooded with negative advertising.  Rather than president voters with fact, they will just hit us with 30-second commercials telling us why the candidate they oppose is evil.

In my opinion corporations can spend as much money as they want on campaigns.  However, these big companies should not expect that if the candidate they supported wins that, they are entitled for any favors back.  Now that they got the candidate in office, the politicians should see that the cooperation’s are taxed fairly.  I fall into the category of people that don’t have the money to support a campaign, but in my opinion, my vote should count as well. Just because the rich people have, the money to support a campaign they feel as though they should have control over the office holder.  If that is the case the rich would be in control of whoever is in office and the decisions that they make.  There should be rules and they should be clear “YOU CAN DONATE MONEY BUT DON’T EXPECT ANY FAVORS BACK”.