https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_v._Michigan_Chamber_of_...
Citizens United was an instance of the government sliding down a slippery slope of precedent, which forced that precedent to be re-evaluated. The facts (the government attempting to punish someone for distributing a political movie about a political candidate) were so stark, they revealed the defects in the precedent that may have been obscured previously. Moreover, the government made clear at oral argument that there was no limiting principle to its position—it acknowledged that, had the Court ruled the other way, nothing stopped the government from book banning and other core free speech violations.
and just because precedent is overturned doesn't mean it is wrong. I don't like Citizens United as much as the next person, but I think this requires a constitution change.
Second of all, in practice, the influence of money in politics is overstated.
Hillary Clinton outspent[1][2] Donald Trump by 2x in the 2016 election, and still lost. In fact, she had far more corporate backing[3][4] than Donald Trump, and still lost.
In the 2020 Democratic Primaries, Michael Bloomberg spent $1 billion[5] (!!) on his campaign, and won just 9.4% of the popular vote (1.38% of pledged delegates).
Tom Steyer (a no-name billionaire), spent $343 million[6] on his election, and won a humiliating 0.38% of the popular vote (0% of pledged delegates). Interestingly, you would think he would have at least 1/3 of Bloomberg's vote, which suggests that the vast majority of the variance in Bloomberg's vote share can be attributed to his existing name recognition as a famous businessman/politician.
Bernie Sanders spent $195 million[7] on his election, having spent less than Bloomberg + Steyer and while having handily beaten both. Joe Biden spent $105 million[8] on his campaign, less than Bernie, and still beat him by 3 million votes.
Elizabeth Warren spent $121.31 million[9] on her campaign, and also handily beat Bloomberg + Steyer while having spent far less than them, while losing to Biden while having spent more than him.
Those are just the anecdotes (of which there are many more).
Decades of research[10] suggest that money probably isn’t the deciding factor in who wins a general election, and especially not for incumbents. Most of the research in the last century found[11] that spending didn’t affect wins for incumbents and that the impact for challengers was unclear[12]. Even the studies[13] that showed spending having the biggest effect, like one that found a more than 6 percent increase in vote share for incumbents, didn’t demonstrate that money actually causes wins. In fact, those gains from spending likely translate to less of an advantage today, in a time period where voters are more stridently partisan. There are probably fewer and fewer people who are going to change their vote because they liked your ad.
So this argument is dubious both legally as well as prescriptively.
[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate?id=n00000019
[2] https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate?id=n00023864
[3] https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/contributors?id=n00000019
[4] https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/contributors?id=n00023864
[5] https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/candidate...
[6] https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/candidate...
[7] https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/candidate...
[8] https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/candidate...
[9] https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/candidate...
[10] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2605401
[11] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002764203260415
[12] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2138764?seq=1#metadata_info_tab...
[13] http://www.sas.rochester.edu/psc/clarke/214/Gerber98.pdf
It’s 2020 and we still don’t have a gender equality amendment even though the majority of states want one.
...let alone amendments for healthcare as a right, abortion rights, and proportional representation.
