In a 5-4 vote on Thursday the Supreme Court, with the conservative members in the majority, essentially ended any efforts at restricting the role of corporations in campaigns. 
Specifically, the high Court ruled that restrictions on corporate spending in political campaigns were unconstitutional due to the protections of political speech in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The ruling basically guts many of the provisions and elements of McCain-Feingold, legislatively known as the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002.
Thanks to the Washington Post, here is a break down of what the ruling left intact and what it eliminated from the law.
What was eliminated:
– prohibiting corporations from using money from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads for a particular candidate.
– prohibiting corporations paying for and running issue-oriented ads 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election.
What the ruling left intact:
– the banning of corporate donations directly to a candidate and from the corporation’s treasury.
– corporations still must file a report with the FEC stating the identity of anyone who contributed $1000 or more to an ad’s production, when a corporation spends more than $10,000 in a year to produce or air a campaign ad.
– And ads still must have a disclaimer stating who is responsible and if the ad is or is not authorized by a particular candidate or political entity.
Supreme Court Justice Alito Is Wrong
Thursday, January 28th, 2010The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United vs. FEC has provided ample fodder for the Court’s critics. Well, last night during the President’s State of The Union speech, Justice Samuel Alito’s disagreement with the President’s statement about Citizens provided even more.
As the President echoed what scholars, politicians, and former justices have espoused in recent days Justice Alito can be seen mouthing his disagreement as “that’s not true.”
What the President, other critics of the Court’s decision, and yours truly have all stated since the Court’s ruling is that this decision opens the floodgates to corporate money in our politics and even allows for foreign influence by domestic subsidiaries of foreign corporations.
This point was addressed extensively by the dissent in the case. Justice Stevens, stated in his dissent that “[i]t would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans.” This point was neither dealt with nor addressed by the majority.
Stevens continued in his dissent, “The Court all but confesses that a categorical approach to speaker identity is untenable when it acknowledges that Congress might be allowed to take measures aimed at preventing foreign individuals or associations from influencing our Nation’s political process. . . .Such measures have been a part of U.S. campaign finance law for many years. The notion that Congress might lack the authority to distinguish foreigners from citizens in the regulation of electioneering would certainly have surprised the Framers.”
Normally when the majority writes an opinion, especially an opinion that turns on its head a century of law, the authors attempt to address all concerns of the minority dispelling each one. The Justice’s simply retort last night “that’s not true” simply isn’t good enough.
Justice Alito was wrong in Citizens United and he was wrong again last night.
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