Jaya Hinton

Pd. 3
Citizens United v. FEC DBQ
The First Amendment gives American citizens the right to assemble, the right to petition, the
freedom of religion, the freedom of the press, and the freedom of speech. In a republican government, the
government is ruled by elected officials so that citizens have a voice in government. A big way this is
able to occur is through monetary donations from interest groups, groups that try to pass policy cohesive
to the goals of that particular group, and what they believe is best for the citizens. According to the
constitutional principles of the nation, in the case of Citizens United v. FEC, which reversed the ban on
corporate and union independent expenditures, the Supreme Court ruled correctly and constitutionally.
The decision was constitutional for the reasons that money allows for the voice of the people to be heard
in government, corporations are not buildings-they are made up of people, and the fact that restricting
speech, even symbolic speech, is an infringement on the first amendment rights of the people. By
limiting the amount of money corporations, who are people, can donate and when they make their ads the
government is censoring information from the people.

People, usually in the form of interests groups, need the ability to fight for what they believe in.
Through lobbying, electioneering, litigation, and becoming involved with the public, interest groups land
themselves on the radars of politicians who support what they believe in. The two work together in order
for the interest groups to have bills in their favor passed and for politicians to become elected or reelected. A big way interest groups are able to help those politicians is through monetary donations.
Monetary donations, both small and large, help politicians to be able to spread their policy ideas and stay
in office. Without the ability of these groups to be able to donate money to campaigns, the people would
not have a say in government and this nation would no longer be a republican government. According to
arguments from the Citizens United v. FEC case, the fact that a corporation, or any other speaker, is
willing to spend money to persuade voters presupposes that the people have the ultimate influence over

elected officials (Doc. I). If corporate and union independent expenditures were deemed
unconstitutional, it would violate the foundation of republicanism on which the framers built this nation.
Money is the easiest way for interest groups to get their policies on the policy agenda so that people
understand their positions and help to get the group's policies passed. According to the ruling from
Buckley v. Valeo, a restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political
communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the
number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached
(Document F). The use of money by interest groups allows the public to understand why the policies the
interest groups are fighting for is important, and allows for the voice of the people to be heard in
government.

In a dissenting opinion from the Citizens United v. FEC court case it is stated that, The Courts
opinion is a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to
prevent corporations from undermining self-government (Document J). Yet all corporations are made up
of people. It is every persons right to form their own opinions and corporations, which are made up of
individual citizens, deserve that right as well, because a corporation is not a building but a group of
individuals. According to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and an Anti-Federalist
very concerned with the rights of the citizens said, I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the
people will always be found to be the best army (Document B). In this statement Jefferson says the good
sense of the people, not of a person, which implies a collective group of citizens that includes
corporations. In the concurrent opinion of the United States Supreme Court, the members elected by
Congress, the members of which are elected by the people, to interpret the Constitution to the best of their
ability to make the best laws for the nation, it was said that, Surely the dissent does not believe that
speech by the Republican or Democratic Party can be censored because it is not the speech of an
individual American....The association of individuals in a business corporation is no different- or at least
it cannot be denied the right to speak on the simplistic ground that it is not an individual American.

(Document K). If groups like political parties are allowed to speak on the behalf of the people in that
party, then a corporation should be afforded the same right to speak on the behalf of the people that work
for it. Corporations, like political parties are not made up of buildings or words on paper. They are made
up of people- of individual citizens- who believe in something and are willing to let one person speak for
all of them.

By limiting the amount of money an individual person or a corporation, which is considered a

person, the government is infringing on their first Amendment right to free speech. According to the first
Amendment of the Constitution, the document this republican nation was founded on, Congress shall
make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances (Document C). If the supreme court
had allowed the ban on corporate and union expenditures it would infringe on the right to free speech of
the people because money is a form of symbolic speech protected under the first amendment. In the
Wall Street Journal a quote from Justice Kennedy, one of the nine elected supreme court judges who
presided over this case, said, Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy- it is the means to
hold officials accountable to the people- political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it
by design or inadvertence (Document M). Prohibiting any facet of free speech takes away from the
republicanism of the United States and the rights the founders built this nation on. By reversing the ban
on corporate and union expenditures the Supreme Court took into consideration the foundation of this
nation and the common good of the citizens.

This nation was founded on republican principles that a ban on corporate and union expenditures
would have violated in multiple ways. The Supreme Court made the fair and constitutional decision in
the case of Citizens United v. F.E.C because they respected the inalienable rights of all citizens and stayed
true to the founders idea of the United States of America. Having statistics that show how much
campaign donations had been limited before the Citizens United v. F.E.C. or testimonials of different

corporations would have been helpful to allow a corroboration between the damage the limitations of free
speech does and why this ruling was the correct and constitutional one.