Why Unrestricted and Unlimited Political Advertising Isn’t Free Speech
A controversial Supreme Court 5–4 majority decision reversed traditional campaign finance restrictions, crippling the fight against political corruption
The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision to give corporations, special interest groups, and wealthy individuals the unlimited right to finance political campaigns must have been conceived by people who don’t understand advertising (or maybe they do). To equate unrestricted advertising expenditures with free speech is ludicrous.
A time-tested tenant of advertising states: “Share of voice equals share of market.” Those who spend the most on advertising in a product category tend to dominate the category over time, becoming the market leader.
That’s why modern political campaigning has moved from stumps to mass media, particularly broadcast television and cable. Share of political advertising can equal share of votes.
The ability to deliver a commercial message to the most people (in the ad biz called “reach”), coupled with significant message repetition (called “frequency”) leads to impact — or favorable awareness, public opinion, and votes. reach X frequency = impact
We also know that political advertising is inadequate in its brevity and sometimes inaccurate. So, if a corporation or special interest group decides to torch an adversarial candidate or policy, the ad may present a one-sided, incomplete, and decontextualized perspective. If a candidate cannot answer critics with equivalent advertising expenditures, then a corporation’s dominant share of voice equals dominant share of votes.
Reconceived by our highest court to be human beings with the Constitutional rights and protections of real citizens, corporations and nonprofits have an unfair advantage. They can invest millions to support boot-licking candidates and self-serving causes. They can turn finance transparency into dark money, wherein the source of funding remains secret. Opposing citizens and small nonprofits usually cannot match their spending.
The nation’s Founders could not possibly have conceived of political campaigns involving television and other mass media of today. They couldn’t have imagined that through the power of media reach and frequency, a British tea company might shape public opinion and influence citizens to view foreign taxation as a blessing.
Being practical businessmen, the nation’s Founders might have understood why a television network, part of a large corporation and dependent on advertising dollars, might favor giving corporations and nonprofits the same rights and freedoms as living humans. Advertising budgets follow.
Through Citizens United, the Supreme Court reduced free speech of individual citizens to a whisper. Free speech isn’t free when the other guy has a booming voice and you have laryngitis.
