As of the latest national elections, it costs approximately $1 billion to become president, $10 million to become a Senator, and $1 million to become a Member of the House. High-priced campaigns, an elite class of donors and spenders, superPACs, and increasing corporate political power have become the new normal in American politics. In Capitalism v. Democracy, Timothy Kuhner explains how these conditions have corrupted American democracy, turning it into a system of rule that favors the wealthy and marginalizes ordinary citizens. Kuhner maintains that these conditions have corrupted capitalism as well, routing economic competition through political channels and allowing politically powerful companies to evade market forces. The Supreme Court has brought about both forms of corruption by striking down campaign finance reforms that limited the role of money in politics. Exposing the extreme economic worldview that pollutes constitutional interpretation, Kuhner shows how the Court became the architect of American plutocracy. Capitalism v. Democracy offers the key to understanding why corporations are now citizens, money is political speech, limits on corporate spending are a form of censorship, democracy is a free market, and political equality and democratic integrity are unconstitutional constraints on money in politics. Supreme Court opinions have dictated these conditions in the name of the Constitution, as though the Constitution itself required the privatization of democracy. Kuhner explores the reasons behind these opinions, reveals that they form a blueprint for free market democracy, and demonstrates that this design corrupts both politics and markets. He argues that nothing short of a constitutional amendment can set the necessary boundaries between capitalism and democracy.

"A brilliant collection of essays on one of the most important contemporary constitutional issues: when can and should the government be able to regulate campaign spending? Each essay offers original insights, and together they are a superb examination of the intersection of politics and constitutional law. If there is to be a new jurisprudence in this area, this book is likely its foundation."--Erwin Chemerinsky, founding dean, School of Law, University of California-Irvine In the U.S. Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, five justices ruled that corporations and unions had a constitutional right to spend unlimited sums in elections. In so doing, they overturned decades of precedent and dozens of laws. The ruling earned banner headlines, a sharp State of the Union rebuke, and public disapproval hovering near 80 percent in the polls. In the 2010 election that followed, independent spending spiked, much of it done secretly. The decision ranks among the Court's most controversial and consequential. This volume is an attempt to map out the complex labyrinth that led to Citizens United and to explore where this decision may lead. The chapters in it arose from a symposium sponsored by NYU's Brennan Center for Justice just nine weeks after the Citizens United decision was announced.

Have campaign finance reform laws actually worked? Is money less influential in electing candidates today than it was thirty years ago when legislation was first enacted? Absolutely not, argues Rodney A. Smith in this passionately written, fact-filled, and provocative book. According to Smith, the laws have had exactly the opposite of their intended effect. They have increased the likelihood that incumbents in the House and Senate will be reelected, and they have greatly diminished the chances that candidates who are not wealthy will be elected. Smith's claims are supported by convincing data; he collected and analyzed information about all federal elections since 1920. These data show clearly that money matters now more than ever. Smith thinks that reform legislation has created a new inequality for candidates that, if left unchecked, threatens to destroy the American electoral process by obliterating the foundational principle of free speech. He argues that "money buys speech" and when candidates lack money to buy media time and space they are effectively silenced. Their inability to "speak freely" violates the most significant intentions of our nation's founders: that a sovereign citizenry elect its own leaders based on a free exchange of ideas. For Smith, campaign finance reform has unwittingly unbalanced the checks and balances created by the Framers of the Constitution.After presenting a detailed historical overview of how we have reached the present crisis, Smith proposes a simple solution: institute a process that completely discloses relevant information about campaign donors and recipients of donations. All disclosures would be available to the media, which would be able to investigate and report them fully. Only then, Smith believes, will the United States have the opportunity to be the democratic republic that its founders intended.

An illuminating perspective on the polarizing effects of campaign finance reform

An in-depth scrutiny into the American savings and loan financial crisis in the 1980s. The authors come to conclusions about the deliberate nature of this financial fraud and the leniency of the criminal justice system on these 'Gucci-clad white-collar criminals'.

"Political economy themes have - directly and indirectly - been a central concern of law and legal scholarship ever since political economy emerged as a concept in the early seventeenth century, a development which was re-inforced by the emergence of political economy as an independent area of scholarly enquiry in the eighteenth century, as developed by the French physiocrats. This is not surprising in so far as the core institutions of the economy and economic exchanges, such as property and contract, are legal institutions.In spite of this intrinsic link, political economy discourses and legal discourses dealing with political economy themes unfold in a largely separate manner. Indeed, this book is also a reflection of this, in so far as its core concern is how the law and legal scholarship conceive of and approach political economy issues"--

This book is the first dedicated monograph on the law on democratic politics in Australia. It synthesises the law on elections, with a central focus on political parties, parliamentary elections and referenda at Federal and State levels.It unearths the rules that apply to elections and referenda, campaigning and political broadcasting, and political parties and money. It explains them in their political context and, while it draws on some local government case law, its focus is parliamentary politics. The longest chapter of the book is devoted to the role of courts in overseeing elections, particularly the jurisdiction of petitioning or challenging election outcomes.Orr uses all five sources of electoral law, its development, expression and interpretation, in Australia: constitutions; courts and tribunals; legislation; parliamentary committees; and electoral commissions. He documents the extraordinary detail of the legislation (there has to be a pencil in each electoral booth!) and the array of obscure cases the law has given rise to. Supported under a grant from The Law Foundation of South Australia.