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.
The ruling was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment's most basic free speech principle -- that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace will corrupt democracy.
The 5-to-4 decision was a doctrinal earthquake but also a political and practical one. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision, which also applies to labor unions and other organizations, to reshape the way elections are conducted.
"If the First Amendment has any force," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, which included the four members of its conservative wing, "it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech."
Justice John Paul Stevens read a long dissent from the bench. He said the majority had committed a grave error in treating corporate speech the same as that of human beings. His decision was joined by the other three members of the court's liberal wing.
Expect huge dollars from corporations to fund the midterm elections, which were already looking grim before this news.
Well, the corporations still have to report it, and transparency organizations, like the Sunlight Foundation, can and will report on who is doing the spending and the American people can decide then if they believe the argument..
I am not as frightful that this decision will lead to a Idiocracy-like America any faster than we already going. Though I share some of the concerns about giving corporations the right to free speech, but I think you have concede that they should have the ability to petition voters like any other group of people or individuals.
Plus, the changes only allow them to spend unlimited amount of money on advertising and such, like everyone else, not direct contributions to officials. So if you allow yourself to be convinced by a 30sec commercial, well, then you suck.