Does the US Supreme Court Favor the Rich?

In an earlier era in this country’s history, buying local judges was a routine affair—almost expected in places like Boston and New York (see Tammany Hall and the Gilded Age), and one way a wealthy person might use the legal system to tilt the political or economic playing field in a city or a state in their favor.  Today, the wealthy don’t have to bribe judges any more; they just have to find judges that ideologically agree with them. With that, crimes like graft and corruption become a thing of the past, and everything else falls in to place for them.

            In the case of the United States Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts, the wealthy and the powerful have found such a judge, as well as four others on his court to do their bidding. Their 5 to 4 decisions in Citizens United and McCutcheon made that plain enough. In the collective mind of these five justices, money equals freedom of speech. So, logically the more money one has the more one can speak out and the more people will hear them on their radios and TVs, or read their opinions or their surrogates’ opinions in the local newspapers.

So, what is wrong with that?

Actually, the concerns are numerous. As it turns out, each of these court decisions allow the wealthy and the powerful (including corporations and unions) to provide huge amounts of campaign funds for their handpicked politicians not just in their own local area but nationwide. And since 2010 it has already had a dramatic effect on the way people are elected—and who is elected. Certainly that had to be Justice Roberts’ intent. Changing the financial rules any game almost inevitably leads to different outcomes, in this case political. The financial rules were changed for Wall Street in the 1990s, and observe what happened in 2008. (Remember, justices like these in the past, decided slaves, like Dred Scott, were not citizens and had no rights, but corporations were people!)

Now, according to likeminded men, someone like Mr. McCutcheon, who lives in one state, can directly back political races simultaneously in numerous other states, spreading influence as far as their money will take them. And with the money such billionaires and some of their political organizations can throw at local campaigns, they can flood the TV airways with campaign commercials that support one candidate or attack another, making it difficult or impossible for the opposition to respond, and drowning out the ideas and the right of others to be heard. And it is working. It also turns local politics in to national politics. Politicians are no longer beholden to only the local population for election, but also to those with deep (out of state) pocks. And if the politicians don’t do what these people want they can find such money being funneled to someone else’s campaign. The lesson here is people will have less control over their own political environment. And these kinds of politicians are indeed getting elected to office in some areas, and local populations find themselves being governed by such people who get their marching orders from a handful people perhaps a thousand miles away. And while these wealthy donors may deny it, those providing funds for elections always require payback, a quid pro quo if you will—be it voting for or against a bill or gaining greater access to the politician. This free flow of funds is also why many countries have gone to public financing of elections. It actually costs them less money and headaches in the long run. (It should also be noted that while unions are now allowed to directly back politicians, private unions like the AFL and the CIO represent only about 7 percent of the workforce in the US—and they are shrinking and no match for corporate interests and the wealthy.)

            While the campaign finance laws were weak from the beginning, with these two relatively new decisions by the US Supreme Court, the United States might soon resemble one of those third world Latin American countries politicians used to chastise for being dominated by a small wealthy upper class elite, with the bulk of the population condemned to poverty and with no voice in their government. From the outside, these countries looked like democracies, but internally their legislatures were rubber stamps for the rich and the powerful. The middle class did not and could not existent in these countries, and without such a class, democracy could not exist. If nothing else, the middle class has provided the leadership for all the great modern democratic revolutions (See the French and American Revolutions).

            Is it a coincidence then that such judicial decisions have come at this time in history? Hardly! Fifty odd years ago the gap between the rich and the rest of the population had not reached critical mass, so to speak. In the 1950s, the average American chief executive was paid about 20 times as much as the typical employee of his firm. These days, looking at Fortune 500 companies, the pay ratio between the C.E.O. and the average worker is more than 200/1, and many C.E.O.s do much better. A typical worker at Walmart earns less than $25,000 a year, while a former C.E.O., was paid more than $23,000,000 in 2012. With the elite in control of such vast sums of money, the United States could be heading for economic and political conditions similar to those found in nineteenth-century Europe. At that time, Europe was dominated and characterized by a small group of wealthy individuals and family members, while the rest of the population struggled to keep up. Sound familiar? The United States seems to be on its way. Figures show that in 2010, the richest 10 percent of households controlled 70 percent of all the country’s wealth and the top 1 percent controlled 35 percent of the wealth. By contrast, the bottom 50 percent of households owned a mere 5 percent.

            Is this really where the country stands after roughly 235 years of existence? Has it come down to the Supreme Court now codifying the rights of the rich to dominate elections as a fundamental part of the US Constitution? Make no mistake. That is what the Supreme Court has done with these rulings. Its main job is to interpret the Constitution, and to speak for the founders, as it were. Has it come down to the court proclaiming in a loud voice (not in a whisper like it might have done in the past) that money truly determines one’s worth in our political system? That money, and the power that comes with it, determines who has a say, or more to the point, the largest say on how things operate and are decided in this country. As if the rich and powerful didn’t have enough say before, and didn't have enough access. 
             From recent Supreme Court decisions, it is obvious certain wealthy individuals were not satisfied with their role in politics or in how society operates, and want more power. In their minds, they know what is best for the rest of the society. And the Supreme Court has opened the door for them. With that opening, they have the means to get what they want. Remember, 10 percent controls 70 percent of the wealth. Obviously, with such wealth, they can raise an army of political and judicial followers to help them pursue their desires. And from such a beginning, there will develop a real and present danger to democracy and to real fairness in society if this shift of power continues unabated. If indeed this is the new and accepted norm in the US, there will be a radical shift away from democratic rule to rule by plutocracy. And if history is any guide, it might be a generation or more before such a power structure can be toppled. One is left with a  question and a hope: When will our hero, Mr. Smith (Jimmy Stewart), go to Washington and take the judiciary back from the moneychangers?