The onslaught of advertisements for the upcoming elections has changed in scope and tact in the sake of the means justifying the ends. Advertisements regarding the November elections have infiltrated much of the available advertising spots across a spectrum of platforms. It has now become an aberration to be unaware of the tides in the presidential campaign. With the diversification of the publics’ entertainment habits, it has become increasingly challenging to target and inform likely supporters. As a response campaigns are using more resources and becoming more creative in approaching their target demographics. To do so, they have waded into a quickly evolving technological ecosphere to deliver their message. To regulate the distribution of campaign related advertisements, states have had to adjust to both the influx of money and correspondingly the number of advertisements being disseminated across a broadening assortment of mediums.
For dissenters of the ruling, the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case has proven to be ominous in terms of how money gets dispersed. While money in political speech has been an issue for many years especially after the Buckley v. Valeo ruling in 1976 that allowed unlimited funds to be spent on a campaign, the effect has been exaggerated after the 2008 ruling. Not to say that the ruling is inherently flawed or unjustified, but that the mitigating result has been that corporations have been more active in using their newfound status as legal donors to Political Action Committees to permeate messages supporting their beliefs.
Hence it has become more important to find the motivations behind the advertisements. Of course, ads bought and paid for by the candidates’ campaigns have to be designed to correspond with the ever increasing digital landscape. To do so, they have used the vast amounts of personal information collected online to surpass hurdles that pertain to effectively reaching the desired demographics. As the Atlantic reports, “Microsoft and Yahoo are selling political campaigns the ability to target voters online with tailored ads using names, Zip codes and other registration information that users provide when they sign up for free email and other services.” The advantages that this access offers to the campaigns are innumerable, especially given how browsers track users’ data. While Microsoft and Yahoo insist that the data collected is sent anonymously and only figured into what advertisements users see.
Targeting more effectively may be able to help smaller campaigns, reducing the wasteful mass mailings and TV buys that can cripple ad budgets. Yet, the bigger campaigns have taken greater advantage and have personalized their outreach via the users’ habits. With the ads being designed for precise voters in mind, the intent of the message can become harder to distinguish. The PAC financed ads do little in the way of disclosing the basis for the funds and thus leave it to the viewer to distinguish what the group is about. With names like Democracy for America and Restore our Future, the ill-informed voter has little guidance on the origin of the message.
To protect the voter and enforce stricter disclosure protocols, several states have introduced legislature designed to reduce the cloud of anonymity behind the campaign commercial process. In Wisconsin SB 281 was introduced but failed to pass as a measure to enforce stricter regulations. The bill would have required the committee, group, or individual paying for the advertisement to
- Assume responsibility for a radio communication, disclosing it at the beginning and end of the communication.
- Require that the name of the group responsible appear on the screen during the full length of any television communication over the full width of the screen, and is readable to viewers of the communication on television.
- State whom the ad was paid for on the bottom of written advertisements, whether it be a billboard or an online copy
Georgia HB 417 was designed with same intentions in mind. The Democratic sponsored bill would require any ads that “expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly defined candidate” to explicitly state the provider of the advertisement and whether it is approved by the candidate. On top of that, the bill also forbids the creation of campaigns designed to mimic existing ones. Meaning websites or mailings that are designed to mislead the voter into donating to an unintended cause is also forbidden; an occurrence that is happening frequently on the national stage.
Websites that mimic the official campaign websites of key congressional races as well as the national presidential election have reportedly collected over $500,000; a significant amount to be siphoned away from competitive re-election campaigns; stressing the importance and inconvenience of determining the beneficiary from the ad. The aura of secrecy behind the funding for many of these projects has siphoned into the mainstream discussion of campaign relations.
Colorado recently has brought a case against the funders of several state amendments and referendums. Amendments 60 and 61 were registered by three men who refused to disclose who was funding the campaigns. As the case proceeded to court, the judge ruled against the defendants writing “their testimony that they were unaware of and did not care who their benefactor was is not believable and demonstrates intent to hide the identity of that benefactor from public disclosure.” The intent of the amendments was to lower taxes significantly, and opponents emphatically declared that it disproportionately favored the upper class. As some other state legislators grow wearier of the impending flood of donations to PACs that come anonymously, they attempt to legislate within their own boundaries.
New Jersey has been adamant as a state in attempting to control the accountability of paid political discourse from campaigns and their supporters. New Jersey Republican Representative Amy Handlin introduced a bill that that is designed to
“prohibit corporations of any kind and labor organizations from making campaign contributions to any candidate, candidate committee or joint candidates committee, political committee, continuing political committee, legislative leadership committee or political party committee, or the treasurer or deputy treasurer thereof. In addition, the bill bans expenditures by corporations and unions for the passage or defeat of a public question or for certain political communications.”
A bill that is in line with a Democrat sponsored proposal in the state senate that would “impose disclosure and disclaimer requirements on issue advocacy organizations that raise funds or make expenditures to influence the electoral process in this State.”
The overarching theme regarding disclosure in campaign advertising and funding strays to a response to the Citizens United case. Without getting too heavy-handed into the legality or morality of the decision, it is vital to point out how the complications of a country that prides itself on free elections and free speech can make regulations quickly arcane.
In preserving a functioning democracy in accordance with the Supreme Court decisions have in large promoted the concept of free speech. Of course, there are notorious exceptions that anyone with an interest in organized labor history will be quick to note, but the right to express political speech individually has been deemed as one of the more protected liberties. The battle over the Citizens United decision then largely lies in a discussion of how free speech is to be protected.
The issue with the monetary expenditures is that as critics point out, it can silence the voice of the under-funded by being able to afford the advertisements needed to publicize a campaign. In this situation, proponents of the current system debate whether even that assessment is accurate. John Staples and Patrick Basham, bot h fellows at the Cato Institute, argue that the monetary levels are appropriate for campaigns with as immense of consequences as they have. Current levels of spending are significantly higher per ad. With an average of $528 per ad spot for the general election, the proportions are increasing. Television stations are reaping the benefits of increased spending and all the happier to air the ads as permitted by law. As there is an “equal time rule” radio and television stations are obligated to give legally qualified candidates access to the same amount of airtime to the same size audience. A law that to the chagrin of local businesses has them struggling to afford airtime during the prime of the campaign season.
Still the question looms as to how the campaigns can afford the increased rates to advertise as they would be inclined to without the donations now allowed under Citizens United. The key in the Citizens United case is that the defining of a corporations “personhood” gives it the freedom of speech rights protected by the first amendment. The issue plagues scholars and both sides have remained adamant on what does or does not justify a corporation the status of personhood as to be protected fully by the constitution.
Garrett Epps at the American Prospect argues that corporations are not people and do not deserve the free speech rights reserved for residents of the United States. Since a corporation unlike a person does need never die. Therefore Corporations are meant to be more resilient and more dynamic than any individual can be. The “law of free speech, to be anything other than a mockery of democracy, needs to take that imbalance of power into consideration.” That by permitting those with access to greater funds to have a greater voice, the court’s decision undermines the protection that individuals are entitled under the first amendment. His case is that the court has been gradually leaning towards this decision, noting their previous hints at this inclination when in the court’s opinion on Buckley v. Valeo they wrote ““the concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment.”
Ilya Shapiro, senior editor of the CATO Supreme Court review, vehemently disagrees with putting limitations on speech regardless of the source. He finds that by allowing corporations to donate unlimited funds toward political causes it is the fairest way for the citizenry to keep a check on the government. He writes that “a world without corporate speech rights necessarily implies a world where government is empowered to shut down speech because it does not like criticism of its policies.” Since, corporations ultimately are a collection of individuals, the money pooled together from their assortment of resources is dedicated to advocate the causes of the business and the people the business represents. After all, the differentiation between a cable news opinion show and a paid advertisement can be seen as semantics between what is and is not free speech provided by a corporation.
Looking at the issue from this light, we can deduce that speech is to be protected regardless of the source. With that view of the method in which speech can be distributed, it can only exaggerate the current conditions of political ads. To navigate around the principles of free speech in order to protect the civility of political discourse would relate to what James Madison warned about when he wrote “there are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests” in The Federalist No. 10.
Nevertheless, the constant bombardment of either negative or nauseatingly positive ads provided for by money from undisclosed sources can safely be considered as contributing to what amounts as a toxic discussion of current political discussion.
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