A CNN article by Jeffrey Toobin asserts, among other things, that
The political effect of, if not motivation for, the [Citizens United] decision was clear: Citizens United looks to be a big win for Republicans, who are the likely beneficiaries of the newly lubricated corporate largesse.
But is that really so? In California, one of the 26 states where independent expenditures for and against candidates have long been legal, a recent Fair Political Practices Commission report suggests that — among the top 10 independent spending committees, which together spent nearly half the total amount that was independently spent — unions probably outspent corporations by roughly 2 to 1 (click on the link for more details). [UPDATE: For greater precision, I added the material between the dashes, which I had originally omitted in this post, though I had included it in the post I linked to.]
Of course, perhaps things are different in other states (I haven’t seen any data from other states), and perhaps they will end up being differently in federal elections (no-one can know for sure until it happens). I’d love to see any more data on the subject, of course. I’d also love to see how lopsided union independent spending is in favor of the Democrats, and how lopsided corporate independent spending is in favor of the Republicans. If, for instance, unions spend overwhelmingly to elect Democrats while businesses split their spending more evenly (true for contributions by PACs to candidates, but I can’t say whether it would also be true for independent expenditures from unions’ and corporations’ general treasuries), then the net effect might favor Democrats even if corporations spend more total than unions do.
I asked Jeffrey Toobin whether he had more data on this, but he replied that his statement was an inference from two circumstances: (1) Corporations are generally much richer than unions. (2) Unions and union supporters have generally expressed upset at Citizens United, while business groups have generally expressed pleasure. And the inference seems plausible.
On the other hand, the inference is hardly dispositive. Corporations might be less inclined than unions to spend their wealth on independent expenditures, for instance, perhaps because corporations think that when they are identified as the funders, many listeners will be turned off from the message. And the overall tenor of unions and business groups’ statements may more reflect their political alliances than accurate predictions of the decision’s effect. It makes sense that those on the Left who are skeptical of the position of the liberals on the Court (and in the academy), and those on the Right who are skeptical of the position of the conservatives, would be more likely to stay quiet. And while this too is speculation on my part, it is supported by the one solid piece of evidence that I have: the California data.
So let me say again: I’d love to see whatever other data there might be in the 26 states that have long had a Citizens United-like regime in which corporations and unions were free to speak in favor of and against political candidates. Perhaps it will show that California was an anomaly, or perhaps it will yield results much like California’s. But it seems to me that before we hypothesize that Citizens United will clearly give more of an edge to Republicans, we ought to consider the data. And the data that I’ve seen so far actually points in the opposite direction.
UPDATE: When it comes to federal campaign contributions — not independent expenditures — corporate PACs outcontributions labor PACs by more than 4:1. But I’m not sure that data on money-limited contributions by PACs (PACs may only donate relatively small sums to each candidate under federal law) tell us much about unlimited independent expenditures by corporations and unions themselves; that’s why I’d like to see data, such as California’s, on actual independent expenditures from general corporate and union treasuries.
Still, if you do think that the results for independent expenditures post-Citizens United would mirror results for PAC contributions pre-Citizens United, then those would favor Democrats. Labor union PAC contributions favored Democrats by a 92%-8% margin and corporate PAC contributions favored Republicans only by a 51%-49% margin, so that the sum was a 57%-43% margin in favor of PAC contributions to Democrats.
FURTHER UPDATE: Commenter Blar points out that in 2004 and 2006, Republicans got substantially more corporate+union PAC money than Democrats. In 2002, the corporate+union PAC numbers were nearly evenly split.
leo marvin says:
If you make data a prerequisite to hypothesizing you’ll put the whole blogosphere out of business. That said, though I’d also like to see the data for other states with Citizens United-like regimes, I suspect California is indeed an anomaly. I’d be surprised if there’s a state where unions are more influential.
March 15, 2010, 8:12 pmMitchell J. Freedman says:
Eugene,
Your percentage is flawed. You counted the top ten donors on an individual basis and used that to come up with your unions outspend corporations by 2:1. Not true. Corporations (and let’s be fair here and say Business) outspends unions 10:1 because there are a heckava lot more businesses out there lobbying, along with their trade groups, than unions.
That is why unions don’t want to see the bad consequences from Citizens United.
March 15, 2010, 8:34 pmCris says:
Unions tend to be contrasted with corporations. If not as corporations, how are unions organized?
March 15, 2010, 8:35 pmOrenWithAnE says:
A possible explanation (though I can’t fathom how one might test it) is that the ban on corporate donations might protect companies that don’t want to be shaken down for donations.
That is, it might be in their interest not to have this particular freedom.
March 15, 2010, 8:38 pmhilzoy fangirl says:
In any event, it is also possible that corporations have more incentive to contribute in federal campaigns versus state campaigns (or that unions have more incentive the other way around). Corporations might have more economic power (e.g., threatening to relocate) in state elections and thus less need to make political contributions in order to gain political influence. Unions might be more interested in political influence at the state level because they perceive an easier time getting favorable legislation passed at the state level than at the federal level. There are lots of possible alternative explanations, even if you are correct in your intuitions.
March 15, 2010, 8:39 pmEugene Volokh says:
Mitchell Freedman: The data was indeed for the biggest spenders, but put together they accounted for nearly half of all the independent spending. It’s possible that the bottom half was overwhelming corporate and not union or individual or Indian tribe, though I have no reason to think so. But it’s not possible for corporations to outspend unions 10:1 even if all the spending that wasn’t in the FPPC top spenders lists came from corporations (and again I have no reason to believe this is so). Is there some other dataset from which you drew the 10:1 number?
March 15, 2010, 8:50 pmMitchell J. Freedman says:
Eugene,
I was probably getting that number from a national perspective, not CA state perspective, and even that varies by year:
Compare:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB119101303675643054-L9o3bRNJEKgo7zW_kYoxYnd4qUY_20080929.html
and
http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/blio.php?cycle=2008 (showing over 70% of total money in politics nationally came from business, and 2.7% came from unions in the 2007-2008 election cycle).
I think you’ll find even in CA, corporations outspend unions on a nearly yearly basis. That is really the bottom line, and it is again why unions don’t like Citizens United, and many corporate executives likely are very happy with the ruling…
March 15, 2010, 9:06 pmsecond history says:
In California, one of the 26 states where independent expenditures for and against candidates have long been legal…..
Given the current state of California, I wouldn’t consider that an endorsement of the process. As I have posted previously, the initiative process in California has become the plaything of corporations and wealthy individuals who can’t get their way in the legislature.
Implicit in the “right” for corporate speech is the responsibility for disclosure, but the desire expressed by some for secrecy (see here), would certainly make the rampant voter ignorance in California even worse.
March 15, 2010, 9:14 pmBrett Bellmore says:
The biggest beneficiary of CU, though they really don’t appreciate it, are the news media. Who, though they’d relished the thought of having more influence in the silence they thought the government would provide them, were only going to the last to be silenced.
March 15, 2010, 9:20 pmarbitrary aardvark says:
It’s a mistake to think that corporations only support republicans, or the more conservative of primary opponents. For years the big corporations gave far more to 501c3′s that had a liberal agenda than to those with a conservative agenda.
March 15, 2010, 9:28 pmHistorically it was the Democrats who built machines based on quid pro quo’s, while the GOP was saddled with a good-government image. I imagine that the two big parties will tend to benefit about equally from corporation money, although the Dems will still have an edge as to union money.
Eugene Volokh says:
Mitchell Freedman: As I note in a new post, the site you point to doesn’t actually support the view that “over 70% of total money in politics nationally came from business, and 2.7% came from unions in the 2007–2008 election cycle.” Rather, as the site notes, “business contributions tend to be overstated. Because CRP uses employer/occupation information to categorize donors, and because just about everyone works for a business, contributions from members of labor unions and ideological groups are often classified under business.”
March 15, 2010, 9:37 pmEugene Volokh says:
Brett Bellmore: I think the media are the biggest beneficiary of Citizens United in a more direct way — corporations and unions will now be able to buy more advertising space, which is money in the media’s pockets.
March 15, 2010, 9:39 pmBrett Bellmore says:
Well, that too, but there’s not a lot of evidence business corporations really want to buy more advertising space for this purpose. (Though after CU they might get shaken down more.) Unions, perhaps, ideological corporations, certainly.
March 15, 2010, 9:42 pmElliot says:
I’d expect the greatest threat is from organizations just like Citizens United, not for-profit corporations. The momentum is with the Tea Party people, and I expect they will be extremely active this election cycle.
There are a lot of very clever people out there, and production costs have plummeted as technology has advanced. This election cycle will be great fun.
March 15, 2010, 9:49 pmBlar says:
Winners tend to attract more money, so 2008 probably isn’t representative of Democrats’ typical share of PAC money. In 2006, Republicans had a 56%-44% advantage in PAC money (including 64% of money categorized as “business”), and the numbers in 2004 were almost the same (Republicans 56%-44%, with 66% of “business” money).
March 15, 2010, 10:01 pmq says:
Sounds like PAC money tends to track public opinion rather closely.
March 15, 2010, 10:09 pmSimon says:
I think the analysis David Brooks gave on the News Hour right after the decision came down was on the money. There’s no reason at all to suppose that the GOP will benefit from this decision, and every reason to expect that the Democrats will, if you think about it in terms of what corporations want when they try to influence politics. When corporations go to Washington, Brooks argued, they want two things: they want subsidies, and they want regulations that make it harder for their competitors. They’re more likely to get these things from a party that favors subsidies and regulations, and that’s the Democratic Party, not the GOP.
March 15, 2010, 10:59 pmAdam B. says:
How does the ratio in California between unions and business corporations on independent expenditures compare with the ratio of their political giving generally?
March 15, 2010, 11:28 pmStephen Lathrop says:
Here, upon the threshold of a new political era that’s likely to be defined by Citizens United, is an invitation to analyze the new politics in terms of old categories. What makes it seem likely that globalist corporations will team up in the Ds-and-Rs harness of accustomed politics? Corporations have been handed the power to remodel politics in any image they prefer.
March 16, 2010, 12:19 amProsecutorial Indiscretion says:
Putting aside the fact that Citizens United has been largely (and perhaps intentionally) misinterpreted by its critics on the left,given that the President spent almost three quarters of a billion dollars to buy his office – outspending his competitor substantially more than 2 to 1 – I’m not sure he is in a strong position to complain about the corrupting influence of money on political campaigns.
March 16, 2010, 12:28 amDoc Merlin says:
Of course the republicans got more money when they were in charge. If you view campaign contributions as “payoffs for not screwing me over”… under that theory whichever party is in power will get the bigger contributions.
March 16, 2010, 4:42 amcommon_sense says:
Didn’t unions have more rights under McCain/Feingold? Maybe that’s why they were more upset about CU–it leveled the playing field.
March 16, 2010, 6:35 amNick says:
I always thought, up until five minutes ago, that it was the media corporations that were upset because it leveled the playing field, but now I have to imagine they’re upset because putting Democrats into office is just more important to them and suicidally more important, in fact, than advertising revenue, and surviving the decade, and not going bankrupt. Which is so amazing to me. They must really believe that corporations are opposed to subsidies and regulations, even though these media corporations are themselves pro-subsidies and pro-regulations. I mean, campaigning all year, every year, for ever higher subsidies for everyone and ever more restrictive regulations, and for permanent Democratic Party rule, and for pro-subsidy Republicans and pro-regulation Republicans, even still, they swallow the line about corporations being pro-market and anti-monopoly. Another example of media corporations exempting themselves from the definition of “corporation,” I guess?
March 16, 2010, 7:07 amAdam B. says:
But given that contributions to federal candidates are limited as to amount and to source, they’re all just tiny drops in an enormous bucket for Obama. There’s not nearly the same potential for corruption as exists with independent expenditures.
March 16, 2010, 10:11 amFederal Farmer says:
I haven’t looked at the data, but my conjecture is that corporations will tend to contribute more towards incumbants. Money and influence don’t really seem to idealogical at all. Corporations will want to grease those with power or those that challenge someone they don’t have influence with.
March 16, 2010, 10:34 amBZ says:
I counsel corporations — for-profit and non-profit — on CitzUnited, and it is highly unlikely that there will be a seismic shift in corporate spending in 2010. The decision not only upheld the anti-corruption rationale (no contributions), but also both the anti-coordination rules and the disclosure/disclaimer/reporting rules. Since the FEC has not clarified how these provisions (which were not written with corporate speech in mind) will be revised or interpreted, few corporations will want to risk the uncertainty involved with possible criminal violations of complex and constantly-shifting rules. For example, a corporation might believe it can speak, but if it neglects one of the technical aspects of the anti-coordination rules, its expenditure will be a prohibited contribution, not a permissible IE. In addition, the disclosure and disclaimer rules were not written with “normal” corporate structures in mind, and require certain compliance steps to avoid onerous reporting obligations. (Note that the California FPPC is far worse in this regard than even the aggressive FEC.) Nor is this likely to improve in the short run, since the FEC appears as deadlocked as ever.
So the short answer is that the prior data won’t show much that is predictive, because the datasets won’t involve the levels of complexity involved in corporate speech/spending decisions under the new decision. You can’t use the data from states which permit free corporate speech, because federal law does not permit full free speech yet. You can’t use the prior federal data because the rules are different.
March 16, 2010, 12:28 pmBrett Bellmore says:
They expect to be come state run media in literal fact, soon enough. With nice, cushy government pensions and vacation schedules. They’ll get better terms, they think, if they start acting like it in advance.
March 16, 2010, 1:00 pmdhlii says:
Why is everyone fixated on how this plays out in terms of corporations vs. unions or republicans vs. democrats ? There is an implicit assumption of unity.
Part of the logic underlying money is speech, is that political contributions advance the issues that contributors care about.
Restraining contributions is in essence content based censorship.
Businesses in particular are not monolithic. Corporations are limited by their duty to shareholders – which can only be presumed to be the direct benefits of the corporation. AT&T’s interests are not the same as Comcasts, or WallMarts, and certainly not those of Joe’s hardware.
Money is a requirement to get elected, but it is an element not the sole determining factor. 80 to 90% of votes in most elections are a given. The $1Billion spent in the last presidential election was spent to swing a few percent of the votes, and those were primarily set by economic fears rather than adds.
The influence of traditional media is on a steady decline. Increasingly we get information from a broader sources – like this blog, rather than Fox, MSNBC, the New York Times or Washington Post. More money will not change that.
The Tea Party may be a reflection of this. Diversity of oppinion and information undermines faith in government. All the money in the world will not change the fact that there are only limited tasks that government is good at.
Personally I find the central premise to all the campaign finance legislation offensive. An individual or organization is constrained in using its resources to openly advance its interests – because politicians in the very act of legislating contributions are conceding that their votes are for sale.
March 16, 2010, 3:09 pmporterhouse says:
Obama raised more money than any candidate in history…and he underperformed in both the primary and general elections. He only won the primary by gaming the caucuses and ended up losing the popular vote to Hillary. Obama only really took the lead in the general after Lehman collapsed. Money is important, but Obama’s underperformance in the general is proof that money is over-rated.
March 16, 2010, 6:10 pmHerb Spencer says:
Exactly! NPOs and NGOs are the real beneficiaries of CU, more so than the corps AND the labor unions, which too many on the Left have chosen to ignore among the beneficiaries as well. Look for the biggest abuses of their organizational privileges to come from these two former groups while, typically, masking them with their alleged “compassionate” and “humanitarian” goals.
March 16, 2010, 6:58 pmricky says:
This is all just a set-up so that any failure of the liberal agenda can be blamed on “Corporations”, which might as well be “the Illuminati” the way liberals use the term.
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