Corporations Shouldn’t Fund Political Causes

In your editorial defending Citizens United (“Josh Hawley’s Unoriginal Constitution,” Nov. 7), which allows unlimited election spending by corporations and labor unions, you cite Justice Antonin Scalia’s principle that “the individual person’s right to speak includes the right to speak in association with other individual persons.” That principle, you argue, “is as true for a corporation as for a political party.”

That is a false equivalence. When individuals join a political party, they seek to promote its positions in association with the party’s other members. Joint political activity is the party’s essential purpose. By contrast, when individuals buy Apple or ExxonMobil stock, they seek a return on their investment; they are not seeking to advance political positions “in association with” other shareholders. The essential purpose of these companies is to sell products and make a profit, not to engage in political activity.