In HORRIBLE Landmark Corporate Campaign Finance Ruling, U.S. Supreme Court Removes Government Limits Ban On Corporate Campaign Spending
January 23, 2010 by Timothy Michael
Filed under US News
| By Jess Bravin |
Jan. 21- A deeply divided Supreme Court struck down limits on corporate political spending, overturning two precedents and underscoring the impact of former President George W. Bush’s appointments to the court.
Writing for the court’s five conservatives, Justice Anthony Kennedy ruled that a central provision of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance act violated the First Amendment by restricting corporations from funding political messages in the run-up to elections.
“The government may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but it may not suppress that speech altogether,” Justice Kennedy wrote in a 57-page opinion.
The very effort to sift permissible corporate political spending from that which violates the law chilled political speech, Justice Kennedy wrote.
The decision voids a key provision of the signature legislative achievement of Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee who partnered with Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to draft the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 which informally carries their names.
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I have to disagree with the title of this article. (Sorry)
The Major Corporations – Fascists et al have been buying elections through loop holes all this time. Meanwhile we the peeps have been handcuffed on our own support for Liberty Candidates. This just levels the playing field and IMO brings everything out in the open where it can be researched and debated.
Love how Obama poses in this article… He was a HUGE beneficiary of bundled and covert corp cash in 2008. Allegedly the GOP gets more cash like this, but that might be more of a Myth, or false paradigm than anything else. If the Corps think that a Democrat Messiah can bail them out then OK, he gets the dough. Of course these guys fund both sides! Yep.