Citizens

The story of social progress in the United States tends to be the upward slope of who is defined as a "citizen." First, of course, it was white male landowners, followed by merely white males. 1865, the Civil War ends, and the 15th Amendment enfranchises all men, regardless of race or place of origin. Of course, the enforcement of the 15th amendment was paltry after less than a decade, but during that decade black men were elected to offices both national and local (Barack Obama was only the fifth black Senator, but one of three black Senators from Illinois). What followed has been called the racial "Nadir", meaning a time when race relations were cold and segregation, de facto or otherwise, became the norm. Literacy tests and poll taxes were specifically constructed to keep blacks and immigrants from voting (not to mention some extralegal methods of scaring people away from polls). The turn of the 20th century saw many states allowing women to vote with a national campaign resulting in the 19th Amendment. So, today, if you are a registered citizen of the United States, you can vote, free-of-charge. It's as close to universal suffrage as a modern society has ever been.

Of course, there are an estimated 17 million undocumented immigrants who, presumably, can not and do not vote (though many obtain an SSI card and driver's license, giving them the materials to register). Then there are the several million people below the age of 18 who work and pay taxes without representation. Followed closely by the 5.3 million Americans who have been convicted of a felony and, therefore, are banned from voting. And all of this relies on a School House Rock image of government and elections. The 2000 presidential election introduced an entire generation to the complex machinations of the electoral college, and the fact that three presidents (7% of presidents) in our history have won without the majority of votes. The electoral college is the lasting memorial to the fear of the masses found within the writings and opinions of that holy group, the Founding Fathers. Any AP Government student can tell you senators used to be chosen by state legislatures, not by direct elections, because the Senate is meant to be a collection of wise-folk to foil the raucous rabble of the directly-elected House. We do not elect our presidents by popular vote because we are not meant to, are not trusted to.

Then there's the way votes are obtained. Let's put aside stuffed ballot boxes. Let's put aside such prevalent and illegal practices such as caging, voter intimidation, and misleading voters as to the location and time of polls. Even if an election is run in the most legal manner possible, the undue influences of old power models and corporate institutions are unavoidable. Corporations have been making donations to political parties and PACs long before Citizens United made it fashionable. The old tactics, known as "soft money", are so called because their use can be decided by the party at hand (usually distributed amongst individual campaigns, even though it's not supposed to). Funding is not just needed to run a campaign; it is, in effect, the entire campaign. A common theme in primary campaigns is a candidate who may be polling well but cannot get the money to continue. Herman Cain ran into this problem. He started with a abysmally low funding and polling to match. As his polls went up, however, his funding did not. This is due to a vast number of reasons, but it essentially comes down to that mysterious quality we call "electability". Investing in a campaign is not like investing in a company; you can't collect and withdraw at your own whim, regardless of the companies long-term sustainability. A candidate needs to win in order for you to see returns in the form of favorable policy.

Now, as Mitt Romney tells me, corporations are people. We now have surpassed the goals of the Enlightenment and entered a new phase of granting civil rights to institutions. A corporation cannot go to the local high school or civic center and pull the lever for a candidate (yet). But why would it want to? We, as citizens, vote because it is the most direct way we can influence politicians. Most politically-active corporations have far deeper pockets than any individual and therefore can have far more influence than a single vote provides. By acting as the fuel for a campaign's spin cycle, a corporation can effectively become the campaign, as Stephen Colbert has been beautifully illustrating with his very own SuperPAC.

Citizens United did not grant corporations the enfranchisement people enjoy; it actually decreased the value and power of a single vote by forcing people to compete with wallets far fatter than we can hope to obtain. I started this post by talking about the increasing equality of enfranchisement through American history. Voting began as a tool for property-owning men to protect their property. But, because laws affect everyone and not just property owners, the right to vote, through 200 years of policy and evolution, spread to all American adults. Now we see that progress being pulled backwards. We could learn quite a bit from the European serfs of the Middle Ages. After all, who do you turn to when the bank owns your house, your car, your education, and now your government? We are beholden to faceless lords who face no regulations, no trials, and no elections. With such status, we can hardly be called "citizens."