By Doug Pinkham
Public Affairs Council President
March 24, 2010
Time for a pop quiz. Please answer the following question:
1. Do you support or oppose the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that says corporations and unions can spend as much money as they want to help political candidates win elections?
That was the question asked last month in an ABC/Washington Post news poll. Eighty percent of respondents said they opposed the Supreme Court ruling.
Given the way the query was phrased, this was not surprising. Yet the poll misconstrued the Citizens United decision by saying corporations and unions "can spend as much money as they want" to support candidates. In fact, laws preventing corporations and unions from giving direct contributions to federal candidates haven't changed. What has changed is the law governing independent expenditures that advocate support or opposition to a candidate. That's a big difference.
Seventy two percent of respondents to the poll also said they favored efforts by Congress to reinstate limits on corporate and union spending in elections. As the Center for Competitive Politics noted in its critique of the poll, the only way for Congress to "reinstate limits" would be "a Constitutional amendment that would roll back the First Amendment." Somehow, I doubt nearly three out of four Americans would support that change.
Here's a second question (from a different poll):
2. Another issue of concern is that some corporations made political contributions and political relationships a critical part of their business strategy. Their strategy was to use aggressive corporate political spending to curry favor with elected officials in order to gain favors, tax breaks and regulatory relief. As a shareholder, how appropriate do you think large political contributions and heavy spending on lobbying efforts are for the companies in which you own stock?
This question was from a 2006 survey commissioned by the Center for Political Accountability (CPA), a shareholder rights group that encourages political transparency and board oversight of political spending. In the poll, conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, 67 percent of respondents said such "aggressive political spending" was not appropriate.
This was also not surprising. Phrases such as "curry favor," "gain favor" and "heavy spending" hardly make corporate political involvement sound like a positive influence on policy-making. And because most people don't understand how lobbying and campaign finance really work, this language probably skewed responses to the rest of the survey.
Professionals working in politics or public affairs have seen these tactics before. Because it is so easy to misrepresent a policy position or an opponent in a poll, one learns to check the survey's actual wording - as well as its entire methodology - before taking it seriously.
Needless to say, most people don't do that.
Why do these polls matter? Congress will use surveys such as these as evidence when they try to rein in corporate political spending of all kinds. "If there's one thing that Americans from the left, right and center can all agree on, it's that they don't want more special interests in our politics," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., co-architect of the legislative response to the Citizens United decision, said after the ABC/Washington Post poll was released.
The real danger is that Congress, as it tries to counter the court, will try to "fix" this problem without doing its homework. While there won't be a constitutional amendment, we might see more restrictions on political involvement or rules designed to increase the administrative burden on registered lobbyists.
Meanwhile, the nation's anti-business sentiment has given new momentum to the shareholder rights movement. While there are differences of opinion over how "open" companies need to be, transparency is a trend companies ought to embrace. Yet some groups and legislators are pushing for changes in U.S. securities laws to require "shareholder consent" of all political spending. Depending on how such a policy is framed, it could make it extremely difficult for companies to react to political crises, including legislative proposals with unintended consequences.
Before Congress moves too far to un-do the Citizens United decision, it ought to examine - as the Supreme Court did - whether independent election expenditures by companies, unions and advocacy groups pose a real danger. The court concluded the danger was minimal, or nonexistent.
Members of Congress should take the same approach - and ignore polls that misstate the level of public and investor support for their positions.
And what, by the way, is the true level of support for the Supreme Court's ruling? Following the controversy over the ABC/Washington Post poll, the Center for Competitive Politics commissioned a new survey, conducted by Victory Enterprises. After correctly summarizing the decision, the survey then asked questions about the case and its impact. Here are the results:
- 51% disagreed with the government's position in the case (which the court overturned).
- 63% said the government should not have the power to limit how much some people speak about politics to enhance the voices of others.
- When presented with four scenarios in which a teachers' union, a trade association, an environmental group and a business wanted to pay for and run ads urging citizens to vote for or against certain candidates, a plurality of respondents supported the First Amendment rights of these groups.
So, what is the truth? It depends how you ask the question.
Comments? Email me at http://pac.org/contact/blog.
