As the 2012 presidential election nears, the citizens of the United States will be bombarded with political ads, debates, rhetoric, etc. Because of the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, we will now be seeing an unlimited amount of propaganda funded by the individual expenditures of corporations and unions. In this case, the Court held that the Federal Elections Committee cannot restrict the individual expenditures of corporations and unions, which overturned the ruling in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which upheld restrictions in order to prevent corruption in the political system.

The Court seems to believe that because it is upholding the long-standing precedent of restricting corporations from donating directly to candidates that it is still preventing the corruption that the Court set out to prevent in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce. I believe this is a gross misconception. Any person that watches television in the United States knows that there is an overwhelmingly large amount of ads that attack some candidates and promotes others. Any person knows that not every single one of these ads is paid for and distributed by the candidate him or herself. These ads are, in fact, paid for by PACs, unions, corporations, etc. Therefore, we citizens of the United States can see the influence that these contributors may have on a candidate.

Why did the Court rule in favor of lifting restrictions on individual expenditures? Free speech. The Court argues that if we are restricting the amount of money that corporations and unions can spend to promote a candidate, we are essentially limiting their free speech. In the Supreme Court’s mind, money equals speech. This is a disastrous belief. If money equals speech, then it would seem that in 2030 we will be paying to state our opinion. If I have something to say in class, I have to donate $5 to the professor’s fund first.

By setting restrictions on the amount of money that corporations and unions can contribute to candidates, we are not limiting their free speech but opening the marketplace of free speech to those who do not have as much money to spend. Instead of bombarding television viewers with the views of the candidate’s large corporation supporters, we are opening up the market to include the views and goals of the candidate and what the people want, not the large corporations.

Such restrictions are essential to our democracy because of what the Supreme Court has been worried about all along: corruption. Let’s think of an example first. Let’s say that there is an election between the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Business. Neither college has enough money to spend on advertisements about their stances on university policies, so the other colleges at Iowa State start advertising in support of one college over another. Engineering tells LAS that they will put out $1,000 worth in advertisements if LAS promises to give all of the Engineering professors a raise. This is explicit corruption. Therefore, LAS may win against Business because it negotiated with Engineering to get more support. In the end, LAS owes a portion of its winning to Engineering and instead of making the university better with what the students want, the College of LAS must first ensure that all of the Engineering professors get a raise.

You may be thinking: Isn’t corruption illegal? Yes, it is. Although my example is a little extreme and it is doubtful that there will be direct negotiations between politicians and corporations, the candidate, after winning, still owes the corporation a “thank you” for contributing so much to his or her win. This “thank you” takes away from our democracy and our needs and ensures that the corporations get what they want first.

With the decision of the Supreme Court and the highly opinionated corporations promoting certain candidates, the candidates are being deafened by the need of those corporations, rather than the needs of people of the United States. Therefore, we as students and citizens of the United States, have a duty to be aware of the corruption and work to make others aware of it as well.

Write to your legislators and tell them that you want to be heard. You want the candidates to listen to your needs and not the needs of the big corporations. We need to hold the government accountable for what it is: “A government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”