The right to freely associate + the right to speak + the right to printed speech = the right to collaborate on speech
i.e., there is free speech for groups as well as individuals
Saying there's right to free speech for groups unless someone gets paid is a little silly and hard to enforce. Hence our current situation.
From another perspective, there is obviously "freedom of the press" but the Constitution does not say who is allowed to own a press and it doesn't say you have to personally own a press to make use of it. In fact, it would probably be problematic if you weren't allowed to hire a press if you had something you wanted to say.
For the same reason groups and corporations don't have voting rights, they shouldn't be able to monopolize speech by drowning out all others.
Additionally, money is not speech. We disallow politicians directly giving people money to vote for them - why would we do that, since the politicians trade is in speech, he's simply delivering stump speech in the form of a $100 bill to his potential constituents.
Money is not speech, but speaking publicly on a scale larger than a literal soap box on a street corner has never been free. Banning spending money to express oneself is banning expression just like banning paying for raw milk is banning raw milk.
And groups do have voting rights. That's how Congress works. The U.S. is a republic.
I'm saying that republics are voting as groups. By definition.
Not any arbitrary group gets to directly vote, no. But different groups do have rights: races, religions, genders, ethnicities, and, yes, groups of people with common values and interests.
Why is it that free speech extends to organizations? I'm all for free speech but outside of individuals and nonprofits I'm struggling to think of good reason it should extend to corporate entities.
The Citizens United case, the most recent Supreme Court case striking down restrictions on political speech, was about a nonprofit organization opposed to Hillary Clinton. The government tried to shut down their “documentary” film about Hillary.
