In 2004, a movie maker by the name of Michael Moore released a little documentary called Fahrenheit 9/11 right in the middle of the presidential election. If you haven't seen it, the premise pretty much was that President George W. Bush was a shit eating asshat who had not only stolen the election in 2000, but also had secret connections to Osama Bin Laden's family and had declared war in Iraq and Afghanistan for self-profit. Though lacking in a little thing called facts, the film proved quite popular, appearing in theaters nationwide and getting released on video earlier than normal in order to be on shelves before the election. However, as can be expected with anything with politics, not everyone was happy. Not long after the film’s release, a conservative advocacy group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that the movie and its advertisements constituted illegal campaign spending by corporations. To be fair to Citizen's United, Michael Moore did come right out and say that he hoped the movie swayed the election, and it was largely funded by left leaning movie producers who themselves made large contributions to the Democratic Party. However, the FEC didn't see things that way and the complaint was dismissed.
Still pretty unhappy, Citizens United decided that if you can't beat them, then join them. The group produced its own movie, creatively called Celsius 41.11, which declared Moore to be a jackass and Bush's opponent, John Kerry, to be dirty fucking liar. It was just as factual as Moore’s movie. However, before Celsius 41.11 could be shown to the public, the FEC declared its release during the election to be illegal. When Citizens United asked what the difference was between their movie and Moore's, they were told that Moore could pretty much do whatever the hell he wanted because he and his producers were in the business of making movies. Citizens United replied by saying fine, and then like the little engine that just never gave the fuck up, spent the next four years making a bunch of conservative leaning documentaries to build up their credentials as a maker of movies.
Things came to a head in 2008, right in the middle of the Democratic presidential primaries, when Citizens Untied prepared to release a film creatively called Hillary: The Movie, which was about how candidate Hillary Clinton was a skeezy lying piece of garbage (at least according to the film). The FEC, not really buying the whole "we're movie producers now" thing, of course declared the film's planned release during the election to be illegal, a declaration to which Citizens United responded by suing the FEC, claiming that laws prohibiting corporate and union funding in elections violated the First Amendment. A district court found in favor of the FEC, so Citizens United, basically at this point the shitty version of Rocky as he would have appeared in one of their films, appealed to the Supreme Court. That's when things got decidedly wacky.
During oral arguments before the Supreme Court, the lawyer for the FEC let it slip that under election law as written the FEC believed it had the right to even ban a book if said book had been funded by corporations or unions and contained even one line advocating for or against a candidate during an election. The whole idea of the government having the right to ban books and other such media just because a certain group created them did not sit well with many of the Supreme Court justices for some reason. Things ballooned from there to questions of why the hell media corporations, which after all were still corporations controlled by random asshats, got special treatment when it came to political advocacy. Debate raged back and forth, and in the end, five of the nine justices voted in a landmark decision that if media corporations were treated like people when it came to election spending, then by god, all corporations should be treated like people.
Well, we all know what happened after that. Corporate, union, and advocacy group money flooded into U.S. elections. Campaign spending more than doubled, most of it pumped in by a few super rich individuals taking advantage of loopholes created by the Supreme Court decision which allowed them to give as much money to advocacy groups as they damn well pleased. So what can we take from all this? Well, basically Michael Moore and a bunch of Hollywood producers used a loophole in campaign finance laws to create a two hour political ad and as a result things swung the other way to the point that they are pretty fucked up. So you know, thanks a lot Michael Moore.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Citizens_United_Money_Globe_(16164666014).jpg