by Ethics Newsline editor Carl Hausman
The U.S. Supreme Court last week overturned a campaign-finance restriction that dates from the Roosevelt era — Teddy, not Franklin — and opened the door to virtually unlimited spending by corporations in federal campaigns. It’s expected that the ruling, which insists that corporations are like people and have protected First Amendment rights to political speech, will be interpreted to apply to unions and other organizations as well.
While there are many aspects of the ruling, it raises two interesting ethical questions. First, while most of us agree that people should enjoy a high level of freedom of speech, who or what constitutes the “people” who are granted that right? Second, how much should the government involve itself in the mechanisms of granting free speech? Does government have an obligation to mute the more powerful speaker in order to ensure that the little guy can be heard?
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