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Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Alison Beard.
欢迎来到《哈佛商业评论》的HBR IdeaCast。 我艾莉森·比尔德。
In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in the Citizens United versus Federal Election Committee case.
2010年，美国最高法院在联合公民诉联邦选举委员会一案中做出了裁决。
Companies were free to fund political candidates and campaign committees.
公司可以自由地资助政治候选人和竞选委员会。
Whereas before those donations were limited and had to come from a pool of money collected from employees and shareholders, they're now unlimited and can be paid out of the corporate treasury.
以前，这些捐款是有限的，必须从员工和股东那里筹集资金，而现在它们是无限的，可以从公司的财政中支付。
And it's a lot of money. Hundreds of millions of dollars.
这可是一大笔钱。 数亿美元。
Many people think this is really bad for our democratic process.
许多人认为这对我们的民主进程非常不利。
Today's authors say it's also bad for business.
今天的作者说，这也不利于商业发展。
It locks companies into an influence buying arms race, opens them to criticism when their public ESG stances don't align with those of the politicians they support and distracts them from more important work.
它将企业锁定在一种购买军备竞赛的影响力之中，当它们在ESG方面的公开立场与它们支持的政客不一致时，它们就会受到批评，使它们无法从事更重要的工作。
Dorothy Lund is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Southern California.
多萝西·伦德是南加州大学的法学副教授。
Leo Strine, Jr. is council at the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz and the Michael L Wachter Distinguished Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Kerry Law School.
里奥是律师事务所的理事会成员（Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz于1965年由赫伯特·沃克特和杰里·科恩创立，不久之后马丁·利普顿，伦纳德·罗森和乔治·卡茨加入公司），也是宾夕法尼亚大学凯瑞法学院的Michael L Wachter杰出研究员。
He's also former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Delaware.
他也是特拉华州最高法院的前首席法官。
Together, they wrote the HBR article “Corporate Political Spending is Bad Business. How to Minimize the Risks and Focus on What Counts.”
他们一起撰写了《哈佛商业评论》的文章“企业政治支出是糟糕的生意，如何降低风险，专注于重要的事情”。
Dorothy, Leo. Welcome.
多萝西，里奥，欢迎你们。
Thanks so much for having us.
非常感谢你邀请我们。
Good to be with you.
很高兴和你在一起。
So, let's set the scene for everyone.
那么，让我们为大家介绍一下情况。
The Citizens United ruling allows corporations to do what that they couldn't before 2010?
联合公民案的裁决允许企业做2010年前不能做的事情?
Well, before 2010, the only way that corporations could give in the political process was by raising money voluntarily through a pack from employees or stockholders.
嗯，在2010年之前，公司在政治过程中唯一能做出贡献的方式就是自愿从员工或股东那里筹集资金。
In Citizens United, the Supreme Court issued a broad ruling, basically saying that corporations can give from their so-called treasury funds and make unlimited political expenditures.
在联合公民案中，最高法院发布了一项宽泛的裁决，基本上是说，企业可以从他们所谓的国库资金中捐款，并进行无限制的政治支出。
And that is something that corporations had never been allowed to do really since the advent of corporations and campaign finance laws in the United States.
这是自美国公司法和竞选财务法出台以来，公司从未被允许做的事情。
And when you're not allowed to do something, people can't ask you to do it.
当你不被允许做某事时，人们也不能要求你去做。
It was kind of good for businesses to be limited in their ability to give because if you're able to just say, we're not allowed to give, then that's an easy way to say no.
对企业来说，限制他们的捐赠能力是件好事，因为如果你直接说，我们不允许捐赠，那么这是一种简单的说不的方式。
And Citizens United turned that dynamic upside down and allowed businesses to give money without getting any specific authorization from stockholders and without having to raise it specifically for that purpose from employees or from stockholders.
联合公民案颠覆了这一动态，允许企业在没有得到股东任何具体授权的情况下提供资金，也不需要从员工或股东那里专门为此目的筹集资金。
