High Court Rolls Back Campaign Spending LimitsAt least they threw a small bone to the masses…
By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, overturning a 20-year-old decision that barred such contributions.
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The new ruling blurs the lines between corporate and individual contributions in political campaigns. It also strikes down part of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that banned unions and corporations from paying for political ads in the waning days of campaigns.
NPR
At the same time, NPR's Peter Overby points out that one important limit remains inAt the same time, NPR's Peter Overby points out that one important limit remains intact: Corporations still cannot give money directly to federal candidates or national party committees. That limit dates back to 1907. The justices also upheld some other restrictions, including disclosure requirements for nonprofit groups that advocate for political candidates. [Thank goodness for small favors]
From the Washington Post article…
Strongly disagreeing, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his dissent, "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation."It sure does, we now have the best government that money can buy!
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens' dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom.
The Washington Post goes on to say…
"It's going to be the Wild Wild West," said Ben Ginsberg, a Republican attorney who has represented several GOP presidential campaigns. "If corporations and unions can give unlimited amounts ... it means that the public debate is significantly changed with a lot more voices and it means that the loudest voices are going to be corporations and unions."The Right Wing Conservatives are always complaining about judicial activism, well let see if they will complain about this judicial activism! The court went way beyond the question before the court. I bet that if you ask people if that want corporation to have an unlimited pocketbook for campaign advertising, they would say no.
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Stevens complained that those justices overreached by throwing out earlier Supreme Court decisions that had not been at issue when this case first came to the court.
"Essentially, five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law," Stevens said.
Corporations cannot vote, they should not have a say in the elections. Corporations were created by law and they should be able to be limited in their scope in what they can and cannot do.
Yes, it is terrible that corporations have, in essence, been given overt permission to buy elections. However, corporations have always found ways around contribution limits. One common practice is requiring employees to make contributions to whichever candidates the corporation supports. In some cases, the corporation has even reimbursed the employees by giving them checks for "miscellaneous expenses" or some such thing.
ReplyDeleteAlso: In essence, corporations are people, too. http://www.uuworld.org/2003/03/feature1a.html A series of court decisions over the hundred or so years following the Reconstruction have essentially given corporations the same rights under the Constitution as individuals. Of course that tilts the playing field steeply toward the corporations' side, as some of them have larger treasuries than some nations.
Restricting corporations' power enough so that limits on campaign contributions are actually meaningful would therefore require that dozens of court rulings are overturned. And, in perhaps the saddest irony of all, it is the corporations' power that will keep that from happening, at least for the foreseeable future.