Congressional committee examines Supreme Court decision on campaign finance

Late last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations and unions have the same free speech rights as individuals do when they make campaign contributions. Today a House committee considered how Congress might regulate those contributions.

Democrats on the House Administration Committee worried that a flood of corporate money would taint elections. Republicans praised the Supreme Court decision as a victory for free speech.

GOP Congressman Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield said Congress should worry about the First Amendment rights of workers whose unions spend their dues on political campaigns they don’t approve of. "A shareholder can even sell the stock," he said. "A union individual would have to quit their job if they didn’t like the way the money was spent."

But Ciara Torres-Spelliscy of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University told the committee that shareholders often hold stock in mutual funds and may not know where a company spends its money. She said it is "extraordinarily difficult for shareholders to learn the total universe of corporate political spending. Neither the Securities and Exchange Commission nor the Federal Election Commission require full disclosure directly to shareholders."

She recommended Congress pass legislation that would require shareholder approval for corporate campaign contributions. Several witnesses suggested public financing for all campaigns.

Listening to the hearing from the audience was California Secretary of State Debra Bowen. She says the US Supreme Court decision won't affect campaign contributions to state elections. Bowen says California law already restricts corporate contributions, capping them at the same amount individuals are allowed to give. She says ballot propositions appear to attract more corporate money than individual races.