Supreme Court Allows Corporate Funding of Political Campaigns
Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a way bigger deal than the outcome of the Massachusetts election.
Sweeping aside a century-old understanding and overruling two important precedents, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.
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Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, an author of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, called the ruling “a terrible mistake.”
“Ignoring important principles of judicial restraint and respect for precedent, the Court has given corporate money a breathtaking new role in federal campaigns,” said Mr. Feingold, a Democrat.
Giving corporations the right to fund election campaigns is an absurdity. This kind of ruling is what I feared most following Bush’s Supreme Court appointments.
Corporations have been around far longer than our country, and our founding fathers were very wary of extending privileges to economic entities. They were way more concerned with living, breathing human beings. The Bill of Rights was written for the benefit of people, not companies – and there lies the ultimate irony of this ruling.
The driving force behind getting this case to the Supreme Court came from The Right, and they are the faction that, when it comes to appointing Supreme Court Justices, scream for “strict constructionists.” Nowhere in the Constitution are there any rights granted to corporations. Why? Because corporations can amass huge quantities of money and they can live forever. Our founders did not approve of giving such entities a voice in electing representatives of the people, because they knew that corporate contributors would fund campaigns of candidates that, once elected, would satisfy the wants and needs of business, not people.
Goldman Sachs is huge and they reported $13.4 billion in profits today. They should not be allowed to fund the campaigns of congressmen because their interests and the interests of your average American are vastly different. As a result of today’s ruling, one huge corporation like Goldman Sachs will be able to blast the grassroots campaigns of reform candidates clean out of the water.
The Plutocracy just got way bigger today. Say goodbye to the Republic, because it’s a thing of the past. It’s a sad day in the history of our country. A travesty.
BravO!
Maybe what this country needs is a revolution.
Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it…
And the most aggravating part of this Supreme Court decision and the election of Senator Brown is that Democrats WON in November. They took over the White House and increased their majorities in both houses of Congress, yet the minority party that is bent on destroying our country somehow manages to control the debate.
They control it with the ridiculous filibuster rule and their belligerent FOX News mouthpiece that inexplicably became the most-watched “news” channel in America. Gee…. do you think Fox Newscorp should be allowed to fund political campaigns? Do you think they’ve already been doing that for the last decade by using their shows to bash Democrats and praise Republicans?
Someday…. Someday…. the terrorists in our own country won’t be fighting the infidels. They’ll rise up to fight the greedy fat fucks that are sending our country down the shithole. Maybe they’ll start by bombing Goldman Sachs.
This is contributing to the more money you have the more powerful you can become. What ever happened to hardworking government officials servicing the people for the good. This is the worst from the Supreme Court!!!