Supreme Court Update

The blogshere is alive with the latest SCOUS decision.
From Mother Jones,

But Justice John Paul Stevens, in a stinging dissent written for the minority, argues that the right wing of the court has engaged in a brazen act of activism--and has done so to award corporations more legal rights than they have previously been afforded.

A few excerpts:

* Even more misguided is the notion that the Court must rewrite the law relating to campaign expenditures by for-profit corporations and unions to decide this case.

* The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.

* Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters.

* The financial resources, legal structure,and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races.

* The majority’s approach to corporate electioneering marks a dramatic break from our past. Congress hasplaced special limitations on campaign spending by corporations ever since the passage of the Tillman Act in 1907....We have unanimously concluded [in 1982] that this “reflects a permissible assessment of the dangers posed by those entities to the electoral process"...and have accepted the “legislative judgment that the special characteristics of the corporate structure require particularly careful regulation...The Court today rejects a century of history when it treats the distinction between corporate and individual campaignspending as an invidious novelty born [in a 1990 opinion].

* The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.

From the Huffington Post…

"That's regrettable, obviously, from where I stand and the positions I've taken and argued here," Snowe told HuffPost Thursday to describe her reaction to the decision.

"It's very disappointing, frankly," she said. Other prominent members of her party, including Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, have endorsed the decision.

"Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters," writes Stevens. "The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races."

In another article from the Huffington Post…

"We are moving to an age where we won't have the senator from Arkansas or the congressman from North Carolina, but the senator from Wal-Mart and the congressman from Bank of America," said Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

From the Wall Street Journal,

Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. whose family owns the Chicago Cubs baseball franchise, is forming a political organization with other individuals to run advertisements against lawmakers who use spending earmarks to steer government funds to home-state projects, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

From the Christian Science Monitor,

The chief justice addressed this shift in a concurring opinion joined by Alito. During his confirmation hearing, Roberts told the Senate in often quoted remarks that he would be a judicial minimalist who would follow the rule that "if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more."
…
The majority justices said the government restrictions interfered with the open marketplace of ideas rather than protected it. “By suppressing the speech of manifold corporations, both for-profit and non-profit, the government prevents their voices and viewpoints from reaching the public,” Kennedy wrote.

Yup, we now have an open marketplace! Elections are now for sale to the highest bidder.

Update: Jan. 22 10:38
I have a question about the Supreme Court decision that maybe you lawyers out there can answer.
If the company is a multi-national corporation how would it effect their political ads?
How about if it is a foreign owned company like UBS or Toyota, could they run political ads. Because they do have U.S. corporations affiliates (Toyota North America)?