Citizens United

RESOLVED: The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 50 (2010) ruling undermines democracy in the United States. THE FORENSICS FILES

THE LD FILE

The Forensics Files The LD File

-2– Citizens United

Index

Topic Overview Definitions First Affirmative Second Affirmative First Negative Second Negative Affirmative Extensions

Corporate free speech is inherently not free. Individuals have unfettered free speech because they can sacrifice their interests. Corporate speech is limited to supporting its financial well-being and not the interests of society. Corporations cannot be trusted to spend their money in the public interest. Citizens United conflates the issue of corporate and natural persons. Citizens United can undermine the purpose of political advertising. More voices in the marketplace can be antithetical to democracy. Corporations are not the individuals the Founders sought to protect with free speech. Corporations shouldn’t have free speech because they are essentially mindless. Citizens must rise above their own interests and corporations cannot do this. On occasion, a republic might have to save capitalism from itself. Corporations can overwhelm the community with self-serving propaganda. We cannot allow corporations to inundate our deliberative process. Rejecting corporate personhood solves the censorship dilemma. Citizens create corporations and so should justly be able to limit them. The idea of corporate personhood means that…can use these to challenge governments. Granting corporate personhood means corporations have rights that were denied…human beings Corporate political speech can hurt shareholders. Corporate political speech is unlikely to reflect the views of the shareholders. The interests of corporations and investors can diverge. Affirming creates a system where the rules upon corporations are too lax to protect shareholders. Lax rules on corporations means corporations will not look out for the interests of shareholders…...