Unintended consequences?

Does Citizens United compel public sector employees to support corporate political campaigning? One Harvard professor thinks so. Most public sector employees are required to make contributions to a pension plan. Many public sector pension trustees make investment decisions in the private sector in corporate securities. The problem is Citizens United permits corporations to make political expenditures from the corporate treasury. Essentially public sector employees are compelled to finance private corporate political expenditures with no mechanism for opting out. Unions, of course, cannot use employee dues money for political expenditures if the dues payer objects. The professor suggests this compelled financing of corporate political speech violates the public sector pension contributors' First Amendment rights. Intereting argument.

Citizens United did what?

Did Citizens United open the door for broader union efforts for Democrats in 2012? The answer appears to be yes. The evidence is the Ohio referendum repealing anti-union legislation passed by Republicans.

Labor takes advantage

Steve Greenhouse writes in the New York Times (registration required) that last year's Citizen's United opinion has liberated unions from campaign reform restrictions and the result is reinvigorated outreach efforts. Money quote:

Before the Citizens United ruling, unions were banned from using dues money to reach out to nonmembers in political campaigns, but now unions plan to campaign among the 89 percent of Americans who do not belong to unions. Union officials have long complained that when their foot soldiers knocked on doors in, say, Milwaukee or Columbus, Ohio, they wasted huge amounts of time because they could visit only union members’ homes and often had to skip 90 percent of the houses. Now they can knock on every door on a block.

Labor likes Citizens United

Citizens United v. FEC, the new Supreme Court ruling on campaign financing has some serious support from labor. Here's why.