This is a rather large victory for free speech... which a lot of the media has seemed to "miss" today.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday reaffirmed its 2-year-old decision allowing corporations to spend freely to influence elections. The justices struck down a Montana law limiting corporate campaign spending.
By a 5-4 vote, the court's conservative justices said the decision in the Citizens United case in 2010 applies to state campaign finance laws and guarantees corporate and labor union interests the right to spend freely to advocate for or against candidates for state and local offices.
The majority turned away pleas from the court's liberal justices to give a full hearing to the case because massive campaign spending since the January 2010 ruling has called into question some of its underpinnings.
The same five justices said in 2010 that corporations have a constitutional right to be heard in election campaigns. The decision paved the way for unlimited spending by corporations and labor unions in elections for Congress and the president, as long as the dollars are independent of the campaigns they are intended to help. The decision, grounded in the freedom of speech, appeared to apply equally to state contests.
Supreme Court refuses to reconsider campaign finance controversy
n a nutshell, the court decided that its 2010 Citizens United decision -- which helped open the floodgates to massive corporate spending in elections and give birth to super PACs -- trumps state laws. And it won't be revisited any time soon.
That ruling blessed unlimited campaign spending by corporations, saying they have the same free speech rights as wealthy individuals, who have long enjoyed the ability to spend freely on behalf of federal candidates.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky praised the court's decision Monday as "another important victory for freedom of speech."
He added, "Clearly, the much predicted corporate tsunami that critics of Citizens United warned about simply did not occur.'
Records showed that the vast majority of the money that went to eight super PACs supporting Republican candidates earlier this year came from individuals, while only about 14% came from corporations, he said.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi slammed the Supreme Court's "terrible decision," tweeting that it "will keep floodgates open to special interest money."
Well, I wish we could limit contributions for everyone. And that includes individuals, corporations, unions, pacs, and whatever.
I do see the constitutional issues. Can we get an amendment going? And I don't mean to limit free speech, just limit groups from buying elections. But it's been a long time since an amendment got ratified.
So what is it that you want pine - a revising of the 1st Amendment that permits the federal government to limit political speech? I think an amendment which limited spending or the ability to incur debt would do a lot more to lessen the corruption than limiting speech would. The only reason it pays to play at the moment is due in no small part to the amount of power, real and usurped, that the federal government currently wields. Get rid of the power and you get rid of the incentive to corrupt. You'll never limit it entirely mind you, but at least you can severely curtail the damage. Who wants to pay millions of dollars advocating for a person or party when they lack the power or authority to then reward you for spending all that money once they are elected?
PrintSmith wrote: So what is it that you want pine - a revising of the 1st Amendment that permits the federal government to limit political speech? I think an amendment which limited spending or the ability to incur debt would do a lot more to lessen the corruption than limiting speech would. The only reason it pays to play at the moment is due in no small part to the amount of power, real and usurped, that the federal government currently wields. Get rid of the power and you get rid of the incentive to corrupt. You'll never limit it entirely mind you, but at least you can severely curtail the damage. Who wants to pay millions of dollars advocating for a person or party when they lack the power or authority to then reward you for spending all that money once they are elected?
