Supreme Court Threatens Democracy with Campaign Finance Decision

In a striking reversal, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Thursday that the government cannot restrict campaign contributions by corporations.  There has been a century long held precedent that limits must be placed on corporate donations to support political candidates, reinforced by legislation including the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and upheld both by Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce in 1990 as well as McConnell v. Federal Election Commission in 2003.  The decision marks an enormous loss for proponents of keeping big money out of politics and opens the door for a future of entirely corporate sponsored political candidates. 

Justice John Paul Stevens presented a strong attack on the decision stating: "The Framers thus took it as a given that corporations could be comprehensively regulated in the service of the public welfare...they had little trouble distinguishing corporations from human beings, and when they constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind.  The Court's blinkered and aphoristic approach to the First Amendment may well promote corporate power at the cost of the individual and collective self-expression the Amendment was meant to serve. It will undoubtedly cripple the ability of ordinary citizens, Congress, and the States to adopt even limited measures to protect against corporate domination of the electoral process."

Truly, this decision is an offense to democracy and a bastardization of the First Amendment.  While Justice Kennedy and the conservative wing of the court may argue that this decision is meant to uphold free speech, the ramifications of their action will inhibit, not advance personal freedoms.  Elections, from national to local races, will now be even more flooded with corporate money, destroying any sense of balance in campaigns between candidates with disparate corporate support.  Indeed, the future guided by today's decision is one in which political contests will simply become proxy battles between corporations where candidates expressing popular will or hoping to reverse this trend will be shut out of the process entirely.  Progressives have already expressed outrage at the court's action, Russ Feingold stated that the decision was "a terrible mistake" and that, “ignoring important principles of judicial restraint and respect for precedent, the Court has given corporate money a breathtaking new role in federal campaigns.”  The heat is on for progressive organizations to pressure the court to reverse this decision and reinstate Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce.  If the decision remains, US politics will become much dirtier and our democratic system even more paralyzed.