Now Americans can at last see the film for which many have been waiting: “Hillary: The Movie.”  It shows some forty interviews with all kinds of people more or less critical of the Clintons, both her and him.  It was David Bossie, the conservative activist and president of the non-profit corporation Citizens United, who went to court to defend his blast against Hillary when she was vying for the Presidency.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) had kept Citizen United from advertising and showing Bossie’s film during the 2008 primary season.  He denounced this government intervention as an invasion of his freedom of speech under the First Amendment.  "The marketplace for my movie was completely and totally shut down by the FEC," Bossie said in an interview.  When he sued and won his case in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, he got what he wanted: In a 5 to 4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned restrictions on corporate spending on behalf of, or in opposition to, political candidates.

The new ruling essentially reaffirms Buckley v Valeo (1976), when the Court established two controversial propositions that have shaped the financing of political activities ever since: (1) that corporations, even though artificial persons, have the same freedoms as individual citizens, and (2) that spending money to influence public opinion is a form of constitutionally protected free speech.

Citizens United overturned the 1990 decision in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commercewhen the Court had viewed corporate spending on election campaigns as a “type of corruption, the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth.”  Clearly, the opponents of vast amounts of corporate spending fear the likelihood of large-scale bribery of elected officials and their supporters.  Would one not expect that politicians will want to show their gratitude to their donors for all the financial support received directly and indirectly?

Citizens United strikes down a part of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that banned corporations and labor unions from paying for political ads in the waning days of campaigns.  Now these organizations and their lobbyists will again be free to spend unlimited sums explicitly advertising for or against targeted politicians and political organizations.

Several commentators, sometimes called “experts,” are predicting that the strike against the McCain-Feingold law is likely to unleash a torrent of corporate attack advertising aiming to sway voters.  Yet, nobody really knows how many Americans listen to the endless barrages of costly political propaganda, or how many are even influenced by it.  Sometimes the advertisers’ condescending messages in words and pictures annoy potential voters so much that they will turn against the propagandists at the polls.

Actually, many corporate businesses are unlikely to spend large sums of money on campaign commercials for fear of alienating their customers, their investors, and the public officials whose goodwill they need.  One wonders if there should not be limitations on the influence peddling by companies that actually work for government, receive government funds, or obtain most of their income from foreign sources.

As an investor in corporate businesses, I certainly object to their high-handed spending of profits without shareholder approval, not only for exorbitant executive remuneration but also for political lobbying.  Corporate managers tend to argue of course that their use of corporate funds for political purposes is soly designed to maximize corporate profits in the shareholders’ best interest.  Even where this is valid, however, there remains an urgent need for specific new regulations to get more transparent shareholder protection.

At its core, the high court's invalidation of campaign finance reforms enables wealthy donors to seek and perhaps gain the financial and ideological advantages they desire.  Certainly, the political and electoral practices the Court’s majority prefers favor the people who have plenty of money.  Americans who want as much freedom of speech as the rich can remedy this situation if they also get rich.