Citizens United v. FEC

The 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission changed campaign finance law in the United States by ruling that corporations and unions have a First Amendment right to make unlimited independent political expenditures.

The Case

Citizens United, a non-profit organization, sought to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Democratic primary. Citizens United filed suit in federal court seeking to enjoin enforcement of the McCain-Feingold Act’s restrictions on corporate-funded electioneering communications.

The Ruling

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that:

• Political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment
• The government cannot restrict independent political expenditures by corporations and unions
• Disclosure requirements for political spending remain constitutional

Impact on Political Organizing

Citizens United is often credited with creating Super PACs. It did not. The decision addressed independent expenditures by corporations and unions; it said nothing about contribution limits on political committees. Super PACs came from two later steps that built on it:

• SpeechNow.org v. FEC (D.C. Cir., March 26, 2010): sitting en banc two months after Citizens United, the D.C. Circuit held that the federal contribution limits could not constitutionally be applied to an organization that makes only independent expenditures. That ruling is what created the independent-expenditure-only committee.
• FEC Advisory Opinion 2010-11 (July 22, 2010): relying on both Citizens United and SpeechNow, the Commission concluded that individuals, corporations, labor organizations, and political committees may make unlimited contributions to such committees, which made the structure usable in practice.

Independent expenditures in federal elections, and spending by 501(c)(4) organizations that are not required to disclose their donors — a category commonly described as dark money — both grew in the cycles that followed. The opinion itself makes no predictions about spending levels, and this page cites no data on the magnitude of that growth or on how much of it the ruling accounts for.

Digital Politics Implications

The holding is not medium-specific. Independent expenditures by corporations and unions are protected whether the communication runs on broadcast, in print, or online, and the disclaimer and disclosure requirements the Court upheld apply the same way across media. The opinion itself made no findings about digital advertising.