WASHINGTON — Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. The 5-to-4 decision was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said that allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace would corrupt democracy. The ruling represented a sharp doctrinal shift, and it will have major political and practical consequences. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision to reshape the way elections were conducted. Though the decision does not directly address them, its logic also applies to the labor unions that are often at political odds with big business.
The decision will be felt most immediately in the coming midterm elections, given that it comes just two days after Democrats lost a -proof majority in the Senate and as popular discontent over government bailouts and corporate bonuses continues to boil. called it “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”
The justices in the majority brushed aside warnings about what might follow from their ruling in favor of a formal but fervent embrace of a broad interpretation of free speech rights. “If the First Amendment has any force,” Justice wrote for the majority, which included the four members of the court’s conservative wing, “it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”
The ruling, Citizens United v. , No. 08-205, overruled two precedents: Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a 1990 decision that upheld restrictions on corporate spending to support or oppose political candidates, and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, a 2003 decision that upheld the part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that restricted campaign spending by corporations and unions…
ThinkProgress
October 22, 2010
Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] responded to the latest revelations about the millions of dollars behind the Chamber political attack ads. “They give new meaning to the term ‘Buy American’…they want to buy these elections,” she said on MSNBC. “[I]f they were to win, it would mean that we are now…a plutocracy and oligarchy. Whatever these few wealthy, secret, unlimited sources of money are can control our entire agenda.” NBC’s Michael Isikoff reported last night that Karl Rove’s coalition of right-wing groups is “expected to raise as much as $250 million.” Most of this money “is coming from big fat cat donor” and undisclosed “secret money pouring into American elections,” Isikoff said, adding that “many $20 million-plus checks have come in from hedge fund moguls and other big business executives”…
And the decision by the Supreme Court that Corporations can anonymously spend whatever they want on political ads defies my understanding – as if Fox News were not enough. In some ways, one has to respect Karl Rove’s persistence. And that’s what it is – persistence. He’s like the Energizer Bunny who keeps on ticking – no matter what.
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