Posted on 09/07/2009 3:47:10 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments from campaign finance reform advocates and opponents in a case many insiders say will be the most significant decision in more than 35 years.
The case the court will hear, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, has the potential to overturn key elements of campaign finance law that prevent corporate spending on elections, a move that would open the door to millions of dollars that could not be spent previously.
“This is the biggest case in campaign finance law, really, since Buckley v. Valeo in 1976,” said Rob Kelner, a partner at Covington & Burling and a leading Republican election lawyer. “It has the potential to make the 2010 election the first one in the living memory of most American adults in which huge volumes of corporate money are thrown into the process.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Awwwk! This is another reason products in the US are so high along with lobbyists.
We need to block lobbyists from Washington DC, and we need to limit campaign donations to individuals only.
BTTT
bad link
The link was working when I posted.
Looks like The Hill took the story down...no clue why.
Try this link:
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/57553-high-court-ruling-may-have-huge-impact-on-2010-elections
John McCain, is that you?
Perhaps the least important case the Supreme Court will hear in a decade. Corporate money has been in politics for a long time and it’s not going anywhere.
Sh*t and Shinola!
A minion must have taken exception to the headline's dire prediction - LOL. Holiday weekend, 3rd string stuck working posts the story, Rahm gets the main guy on the phone and after a quick reaming, the article mysteriously transforms.
Fear not, little RATs, a wise Latina will be guiding the dissent. :)
As opposed to the $200 million in Soros money and $60 million in union money in the 2008 election, all of it spent on Obama and the Democrats. Oh, but that doesn't count.
We need to block lobbyists from Washington DC, and we need to limit campaign donations to individuals only.
Campaign donations should at least be made by humans. Corporations don’t qualify.
“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . . (or) to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Corporations have every right to petition the very Government that can regulate or even shut them down.
No, corporations aren’t people. They are however owned by people that get special consideration protections not allowed to real business owners. If they want special favorws they should expect to give something up.
Pardon me, but why do you think that?
Corporations -- large and small -- have a huge stake in what government does. An inconsequential regulation can literally ruin a company (and the individuals who own it). Don't they have a right to self-defense?
Or, to the contrary, an otherwise inconsequential regulation can make other corporations (and the individuals who own them) wildly successful. Have they no right to pursue this success, when it is in the government's hands to offer?
If you want to get corporate lobbyists and money out of politics, there is only one way to do so: Take the power of corporate life or death out of Congress' hands. In the meantime, try to understand that Congress has the power to extort and corporations are compelled to defend themselves.
Of course they do. They have the same rights as I do to protest government control. But they shouldn’t spend billions of dollars for lobbyists to pay off elected officials to make government favor them above individuals.
The cost of their billions of dollars of lobbying expense eventually winds up on my back. And they can literally buy an elected official with campaign contributions.
They can organize just like citizens can and implment righteous, transparent protest, rather than behind closed door deals with politicians.
I’m not sure where i stand on this. Last time I checked, I disliked much of the CFR bill; but I don’t think of corporations as individuals.
I do think businesses and corporations should have limited representation in our government, but it should be in a general nature ie what’s best for the overall industry, not one over the other.
Interesting case, though.
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