ABSTRACT
When the Supreme Court issued its decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in January 2010, political commentators and concerned citizens cried foul. Citizens United is, of course, the landmark case holding that corporations enjoy the same rights as individuals to spend as much money as they would like on ads supporting or opposing candidates for political office. Prior to the decision, corporations were not permitted to spend any money on political speech. Their newfound entitlement threatened to make the problem of money in politics magnitudes worse. After all, not only is the average publicly traded corporation far wealthier than the average individual, 1 corporations also have the added benefit of immortality, which could allow them to accumulate wealth over many human lifespans (Beard, 1936, 345; Torres-Spelliscy, 2018).
