Most Americans oppose unlimited corporate campaign spending

WASHINGTON — Most Americans know they have a constitutional right to freedom of speech, and for a clear majority, that does not translate into allowing unlimited spending by corporations or labor unions on political campaigns, according to a new survey.

Americans oppose unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions by a 2-to-1 margin, according to poll results released Tuesday by the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center. The poll found 63 percent believe corporations or unions should not be able to spend as much as they want supporting political candidates, while 30 percent said they should spend freely.

The annual survey on public knowledge and opinions about the First Amendment asked about such campaign spending after the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 ruling in the Citizens United case that removed spending limits for such groups.

“Clearly there’s a divide between the Supreme Court, which said that money equates to speech and has said so for some time,” said Gene Policinski, senior vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center based at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and in Washington. “People are obviously making a distinction. They’re not buying into that idea that at least big money from corporations or unions equates to speech.”

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