Print edition: 
If you have been offended by the volume and nature of the activity of super political action committees in the Republican presidential campaign, just wait until fall.
And if you’re hoping someone other than you will do something about it, don’t hold your breath. Rather, hold tight to your remote control and your self-control so you can survive the bombast and deceit.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision two years ago in the Citizens United case unleashed the hounds of electoral hell by outlawing any limitation on spending during political campaigns. The First Amendment’s free speech clause, five of the nine justices ruled, must surely apply in the most basic democratic exercise of all: deciding who will hold public office.
It was a decision bound to negatively affect political campaigns, thrusting an already messy process into the hands of people and organizations with endless resources and the willingness to use them to achieve their aims. It put democracy on sale to the highest bidder.
That outcome was inevitable, though it took a couple of centuries to mature. It firmly established the compound concept that you can’t have democracy without free speech and you can’t guarantee free speech to anyone unless everyone has it in equal measure.
To understand the inevitability, consider two legal trends that evolved separately over two centuries: the notion that associations of people deserve and need the same rights and protections as individuals, and the need to minimize the corrosive impact of money on democracy.
In the Citizens United case, the contrasting ideas came starkly together, and a majority of the justices could see no persuasive way to harmonize them.
“If the First Amendment has any force,” the majority said, “it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”
The minority, struggling to forestall the certain dire consequences of the decision, could only argue that corporations are not people and that not limiting their political expenditures is a really dangerous course.
What makes the decision so tough to get around is this: A corporation, say AT&T, is simply an association of people – shareholders and employees – banded together for a specific purpose: to make a profit. Other people band together in other associations, say the National Rifle Association or labor unions, for other purposes, such as influencing legislation or representing their members’ interests. Is one purpose more meritorious than the other?
Despite the cognitive dissonance when you say it, spending money is an exercise in free speech. Are the people in one type of association entitled to that particular sort of speech while those in another are not?
The fateful decision is not going away. One oft-proposed remedy, a constitutional amendment, is impractical in both concept and the likelihood of execution. But even if it were to pass, the wise guys and high rollers who for more than a century have consistently worked around efforts to limit spending would again mix their toxic potions.
So what’s the conscientious citizen to do?
• Accept that campaigns will grow even more despicable and corrosive, but for only so long as those tactics work.
• Identify and punish in every legal way possible the people who spend the millions.
• Campaign and vote against the people who benefit from the expenditures.
Doesn’t seem like much, maybe, but it’s what we have.
