Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is pushing legislation that would reverse the Supreme Court case Citizens United v. FEC. “My goal is to get corporate money out of our politics,” the Missouri Republican said in an interview. Hawley says the unchecked corporate influence over politics and elections as a detriment to both American workers and democracy.
His legislation would return some aspects of campaign finance law to a quasi pre-Citizens United state. Publicly traded companies would be barred from engaging in political activities like making independent expenditures and contributing to SuperPACs. Non-profit organizations would not be impacted.
The wild west of campaign finance law created by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 has allowed corporations to inject themselves into into more than just electoral politics. It is this aspect of political spending that has especially animated Hawley’s push to rein the decision in, with the Senator asserting that corporate political giving has moved beyond just backing candidates, and into backing pet liberal issues. Corporations “now want to dictate voting laws in the states” and “…dictate rules on biological men playing women’s sports,” he said.
Hawley’s biggest critique of Citizens United is that it has allowed a dangerous union of corporate and progressive money to coalesce into a Democrat dark money operation that dominates U.S. politics. Progressive groups like Arabella Advisors have been able to transform non-profits into clearing houses for individual and corporate cash and funneled that money into radical left-wing causes.
While Hawley’s legislation may garner support among political populists and some Senate Democrats, it is unlikely to receive enough support in either legislative body of Congress to reach President Joe Biden’s desk. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) tore into Sen. Hawley during a meeting of Senate Republicans on Tuesday. Corporate-backed McConnell warned colleagues that anyone who backed the effort to rollback Citizens United would receive blowback from the political right.
