Citizens United was a poor decision for democracy. I can understand how it came about: it was the logical extension of a set of decisions and customs dating from the 19th century. However logical and direct that train of thought may be, though, it loses sight of one big issue: that corporations, while a convenient legal fiction, are not people. Even if the law treats them as such for many purposes.
Thus came Citizens United, and thus came the world we live in today. I’d like to see this situation change, although I realize that it will take something a bit more than simply reversing the case. It will take a serious revision of our legal system, up to and including revising our constitution. Perhaps I’ll see some pushback against corporate personhood in my lifetime, although I’m not holding my breath.
That said, I do think that we have reason to think that the fallout from Citizens United will be at least somewhat limited. The way that Target’s donation to MN Forward played out is about as well as I could have hoped: Target was forced to apologize for their donation that funded pro-Emmer ads (MN Forward is certainly not just advocating for Emmer, but so far these donations have not had the negative publicity that the Emmer ads did). This is a huge step forward.
Corporations that were eager to get money into campaigns should take heed: people are paying attention. And no matter what party you donate to, members of the other side are going to get angry at you. Corporations have to ask themselves if it is really worth it? For a lot of them, the answer will be yes, but if some of them decide to sit out, it will be better than the alternative.
What I’d really like to see are shareholder lawsuits against corporations that make poor decisions with their donations, as that would probably put a significant halt to corporate money in politics. The PR disaster that Target experienced, though, will hopefully serve the same purpose to some degree. Until we change corporate personhood, that’s probably as much as we can hope for.