The ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission radically reverses well-established law and erodes a wall that has stood for a century between corporations and electoral politics. (The ruling also frees up labor unions to spend, though they have far less money at their disposal.)
The founders of this nation warned about the dangers of corporate influence. The Constitution they wrote mentions many things and assigns them rights and protections — the people, militias, the press, religions. But it does not mention corporations.
In 1907, as corporations reached new heights of wealth and power, Congress made its views of the relationship between corporations and campaigning clear: It banned them from contributing to candidates. At midcentury, it enacted the broader ban on spending that was repeatedly reaffirmed over the decades until it was struck down on Thursday.
This issue should never have been before the court. The justices overreached and seized on a case involving a narrower, technical question involving the broadcast of a movie that attacked Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2008 campaign. The court elevated that case to a forum for striking down the entire ban on corporate spending and then rushed the process of hearing the case at breakneck speed. It gave lawyers a month to prepare briefs on an issue of enormous complexity, and it scheduled arguments during its vacation.
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Read it all, New York Times editorial, this link.
They lit a fire. It will burn until a Constitutional Amendment extinguishes it, and in the interim there will be effort at containment legislation. Expect the containment legislation to suffer the identical fate prior legislation suffered via this recent wrong decision. Legislation in the face of what was done seems to be a stop-gap alternative, at best.
Next, John Dean, at this link, wrote this excerpt:
Aside from the fact that the majority ruling reeks of conservative politics, what I find most striking about conservative judicial activism typified by this ruling is the fact that the justices involved are totally out of touch with reality. None of the men involved in this historic decision have been elected to anything, ever. They have no idea how difficult it is for elected officials to deal in the contemporary money-flooded milieu of Washington. The work experience of those who have further opened the floodgates for money in politics is restricted to the executive branch, high-priced law firms, or the chambers of the lower federal appellate courts. Not since the late Justice Hugo Black, a former U.S. senator who retired in 1971, has the court had a member of Congress on its bench, someone who can explain the real world to the other justices. These conservative justices live in a bubble, and they have little true understanding of what they have done, other than, of course, to know that they have taken care of conservatives, the so-called Citizens United who filed this lawsuit. (Yes, David N. Bossie, the president of Citizens United, is the same fellow who worked overtime to impeach President Bill Clinton.)
After I fully digest this decision and speak with friends in Washington who have long been concerned that the Bush/Cheney legacy that now controls the high court might do as they have in fact done, I will share further thoughts about the damage this ruling will bring, and what can and will be done. For this ruling has the potential of being even more pernicious than Bush v. Gore, since it reaches not merely the presidency but every elective office in the United States. Conservatives may not know how to govern when they are in power, but they sure know how to make certain that centrists, progressives and liberals are not given a sustained opportunity to work their will.
That sums up the real, actual citizen spectrum that got partly disenfranchised by five misguided individuals - with three of them at least, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas each being a clear and ongoing embarrassment to jurisprudence.
How did Bush et al. find these disturbing hacks? How did John Danforth stumble across the path of Clarence Thomas? How does chance do such evil to human beings, actual people and not fictional ones, such as corporations?
Third item, Russ Feingold, at this link. Sen. Feingold's statement is short, but as many have, he writes as if entirely astounded that erstwhile jurists would think to issue such a thing. His post can also be reached from Sen. Feingold's Senate home page which lists in order of recency position statements of the Senator. It is interesting he ends his statement by being vague about what best steps are needed, and what steps might or might not be effective, in undoing or minimizing the mischief:
The American people will pay dearly for this decision when, more than ever, their voices are drowned out by corporate spending in our federal elections. In the coming weeks, I will work with my colleagues to pass legislation restoring as many of the critical restraints on corporate control of our elections as possible.
Final highlighted item, Dennis Kucinich, at his House website:
Kucinich Denounces Supreme Court Decision in Citizens United Case
Washington, Jan 21 -
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today released the following statement following the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission:
“Today’s decision will allow corporations to spend unlimited funds in support of political candidates. It will increase the stranglehold corporations now have over politics. There is no more effective way to concentrate even more money and power in the hands of the wealthy.
[...] Now, it is incumbent upon Congress to act. We must reclaim the democratic process and protect the voice of American citizens. If we allow corporations, many of whom are owned by foreign interests, to exert the kind of influence allowed by today’s ruling, we will have, finally and completely, abandoned Lincoln’s government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people,’” said Kucinich.
Again, as with Feingold, we must act - a clear clarion there. How to act, what to do is left as open by Rep. Kucinich as it was by Sen. Feingold.
Currently, as of the date of this post, we await a senate website statement on the issue from Sen. Klobuchar, a lawyer, and we await also a similar statement from Sen. Franken. Presumably they are in agreement with Feingold and are withholding comment until each, with staff, considers the severity of the situation.
While the politicians say something must be done, and are not yet onto an agenda that might be felt universally doable and capable of being sustained against further right-wing judicial activism at the highest judiciary level; the consensus progressive grassroots sentiment seems to be, "Amend the thing so their evil is undone and so the five-man majority can not credibly justify doing any further such evil." And that is not to suggest evil done so far is at all really credible, just that the door needs to slammed shut and nailed tightly.
I trust the progressive grassroots on this one.
_______UPDATE________
I find it interesting that my two barometer GOP bloggers, at Residual Forces and Let Freedom Ring Blog, are dead silent on the decision beyond one initial post, Jan 21, at Gary's blog. Almost as if it never happened. And Gary accepted as a starting premise that spending money is "speech" and sees no distinction between human beings and corporations spending money. That is why I believe a Constitutional amendment to undo the decision must start by declaring clearly, "Money is not speech." Yet aside from one item, on those blogs it is as if it somehow is less news than the mundane things about which they post.
I think they are too ashamed of it to comment further. Or too happy with the implications of the results that will arise, per their GOP leanings, to be critical.
So they say little. Perhaps they see it as a marginal concern to local matters. Yet the GOP complained about Kelliher, the DFL, and money, so how should we read Citizens United to impact that?
I think the GOP "conservatives" are hard-pressed to find a word to say in defense of Citizens United, beyond rote acceptance.
I welcome any non-spam comment posting a link to any recognized online resource that likes the decision.
Starting the ball rolling that way, readers might look here, here and here, seeming more intent on trashing Rep. Alan Grayson than on defending judicial activism from the far right. I found only one strong statement favoring the change in law these right-wing activist judges have created.
Report on Sen. McCain's view, here.
What the decision, (premised as it is on the First Amendment which is applicable to and binding upon state action under the Fourteenth Amendment), means to state campaign finance law [e.g., the recent CFB fine of the DFL and gubernatorial candidate Kelliher] is the topic, here.
This Google News search result gives multiple links readers might explore.
[note the update was edited to clearly indicate and link to a blog post Gary Gross published at his blog - I was in error not recalling it on first writing]