The Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case is a disaster for the American people and a dark day for the Supreme Court.
The decision will unleash unprecedented amounts of corporate "influence-seeking" money on our elections and create unprecedented opportunities for corporate "influence-buying" corruption.
The decision is the most radical and destructive campaign finance decision in Supreme Court history. . . .
The Supreme Court majority has acted recklessly to free up corporations to use their immense, aggregate corporate wealth to flood federal elections and buy government influence. The Fortune 100 companies alone had combined revenues of $13 trillion and profits of $605 billion during the last election cycle.
Under the decision, insurance companies, banks, drug companies, energy companies and the like will be free to each spend $5 million, $10 million or more of corporate funds to elect or defeat a federal candidate -- and thereby to buy influence over the candidate's positions on issues of economic importance to the companies. . . .
In the coming weeks, Congress should explore all possible legislative options to address the dangerous corruption problems opened up by the Supreme Court. . . .
Justice Louis Brandeis once said, "The most important political office is that of the private citizen." The Supreme Court decision rejects Brandeis' view, raising corporations to new heights of influence in our political system.
criticism of candidates running for office, like criticism of politicians in office, has always been viewed as what the First Amendment protects most obviously and most importantly. Why should that not be true of speech of corporations? Or unions? Whether criticism -- or praise -- of political leaders comes from individuals, associations, corporations or unions, it is still a valuable part of the democratic process. If the law were otherwise, if corporations of all sorts were subject to congressional oversight as to their content, the free speech of all would be imperiled.
Citizens United's orientation is sharply to the right. On the left, BCRA required advertisements for Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" to be pulled off the airwaves as the Republican Convention of 2004 approached. And as the national election approached that year, the ACLU was required to avoid mentioning President Bush in advertisements it was publishing denouncing the Patriot Act.
Given the court's ruling, corporations and unions will now be free to participate in the political process to a greater degree than had previously been possible. . . .
Twenty-six states already allow corporations to spend their funds on state elections and there has been no discernible impact on those elections. Justice Anthony Kennedy put it well in concluding that "under our law and our tradition it seems stranger than fiction for our government to make political speech a crime."