Courts Roll Back Limits on Election Spending

[Lorien]

Source: NYT

Courts Roll Back Limits on Election Spending
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON — Even before a landmark Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance law expected within days, a series of other court decisions is reshaping the political battlefield by freeing corporations, unions and other interest groups from many of the restrictions on their advertising about issues and candidates.

Legal experts and political operatives say the cases roll back campaign spending rules to the years before Watergate. The end of decades-old restrictions could unleash a torrent of negative advertisements, help cash-poor Republicans in a pivotal year and push President Obama to bring in more money for his party.

If the Supreme Court, as widely expected, rules against core elements of the existing limits, Democrats say they will try to enact new laws to reinstate the restrictions in time for the midterm elections in November. And advocates of stricter campaign finance laws say they hope the developments will prod the president to fulfill a campaign promise to update the presidential campaign financing system, even though it would diminish his edge as incumbent.

Many legal experts say they expect the court to use its imminent ruling, in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, to eliminate the remaining restrictions on advertisements for or against candidates paid for by corporations, unions and advocacy organizations. (The case centers on whether spending restrictions apply to a conservative group’s documentary, “Hillary: The Movie.”)



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/us/politics/09donate.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[AlbertCat]

1. This is a disaster

More ways to spread lies. It just so happens that the GOP needs to lie the most right now. But regardless of who's lying, the credulous won't stand a chance of sorting out crap from things that could benefit their lives. It's bad enough with what we have now! Media is just a little more ubiquitous than in the Watergate Era, y'know. And lies are more often easier to disperse and state than the complicated truth. Like Oscar Wilde said "The truth is rarely pure and never simple." Lies on the other hand...

All candidates should get the same cash from one source. All candidates should get the same amount of total air time...donated by the airwaves. I know....dream on....

[EFerrari]

16. We're so screwn.

[DainBramaged]

2. Every major corporation would only need one lobbyist

because that ONE person could go around to each political office holder and simply say "if you don't vote my way, we will devote whatever funds it takes to defeat you".


We're fucked.

[Lorien]

3. And yet watch as DU gets more worked up over Reid's "negro" comment

than they do about this travesty. We've been conditioned to focus on nonsense while ignoring the real threats.

[DainBramaged]

4. I have noticed that pattern recently.....food stamps are a wonderful distraction.....

:hi:

[Wilms]

5. Too many here, Reid's "leadership" IS a real threat.

And that might be part of the upset with his "unfortunate" comments.

[Lorien]

7. A greater "threat" that corporate fascism?

amazing.

[Wilms]

13. Not greater than. Part of.

Regardless of the specific threat (militarism, fascism, etc.), the argument is that Reid is the wrong guy to lead the Senate.

The health care, er, insurance industry stimulus debate can serve as a case in point. Do I really think Reid's the best person to represent the people's interests?

Neither of us have to agree with that in order to understand.

[Lorien]

19. Somehow you bounced from Reid (apparently the new "public enemy #1")

to the health care debate when the topic is corporate influence over elections. Without controls on corporate lobbying and electoral influence the Great American Experiment is OVER. It won't matter who leads the Senate, the Senate will work entirely for them (not like it doesn't already).

[Wilms]

21. "not like it doesn't already"

Ya just answered it.

I couldn't have said it better. Though the "public enemy #1" comment is just plain spin.

I've not bounced one bit. You commented that DUers are busy trashing Reid. I explained why that might be.

[No Elephants]

44. Reid needs to do a Dodd before he loses in a general election, and do it soon, but that is

a separate issue.

[WattleBreakfast]

28. Exactly what I was thinking.

[No Elephants]

43. +1

[happy_liberal]

58. +1000000

nt

[high density]

6. All My Trials

If living were a thing that money could buy,
You know the rich would live
and the poor would die...

[Scruffy1]

29. This is only an admission of what already is

All my life the corporations have completely controlled the media and the election process with the willing accomplices in big media. So now its a little more open is all. I take comfort in the indomitability of the spirit of the small percentage who read, study and make up their own mind. I hate to say it but the majority will always be cattle. This is not to mean they are not good people , but simply that they lake the resources, time, money and perhaps the will to learn and be educatedand have bought into the corporate lie that it makes no difference. I also know it takes leadership to accomplish anything and that has been sorely lacking on the left. Imagine if there were an Obama that was actually a lefty. My mind boggles at the thought and I spend a lot of my time looking for young talented leaders to carry on the torch of hope for a better world.
Look at DU itself. Although I rarely post I have been reading it for years and its obvious that the great debates going on here rise far above that which any advertising hack can come up with. Another truth about advertising is that good advertising kills a bad product quickly as McDonalds found out years ago.This applies to freaks like Sarah Palin and Rudy. Of course our supreme court is a bunch of fascists. They always were. From Dred Scott, Plessy vs. Ferguson, Schecter they have always been in the pocket of the big money and entrenched power. Its our job to change it.
To me its time to stop worrying about what the discredited media thinks, what the hopeless neo-cons think, and what the democratic "leadership" thinks and move on. It's getting so I don't even want to look at the "liberal blogs" like daily kos and crooks and liars because all I see is reporting on what some irrelevant right wing gas bag said. I don't give a shit about them-the important thing is what we are doing.
Organize, protest, call, write, pound on doors, whatever it takes. Go to jail if you must but don't ever throw in the towel. The dream can become a reality but it won't happen without leadership AND ACTION.

[No Elephants]

46. The Supreme Court did have its Camelot years. Ironically, under Chief Justice

Earl Warren, an Eisenhower appointee who had "made his bones" interning Janpanese in California in WW II. Great civil rights, first amendment, etc. decisions. Eisenhower called appointing Warren the worst mistake of his administration.

The Warren Court overruled Plessy v. Ferguson and made other great civil rights and First Amendment decisions and also made mincemeat of Schecter (a process that had begun under FDR). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Court

I agree with you that we need to stop focusing on what the right wing says about Democrats. It's irrelevant.

[No Elephants]

45. Living is a thing that money can buy. And the poor do die. 45,000 per year.

Including my son's friend.

[BrklynLiberal]

8. damnddamndamn!!!!!

[Krashkopf]

9. It will be, quite literally, an END to democracy . . .

[Lorien]

20. And barely a word from the M$M

not surprising, is it?

America ends not with a bang, but with a whisper.

[No Elephants]

47. Why would the MSM want limits on campaigin financing?

They make a lot of money selling TV time.

[CLANG]

10. I've lost hope

Goodbye cruel world...:nuke:

[salguine]

11. The People still have this option. It may be the only option left:

[whyverne]

14. Yes, I'm afraid that nonviolent notions may become "quaint". n/t

[No Elephants]

48. We started with revolution and that became quaint as we became sheeple.

Now democracy has become quaint.

[Doctor_J]

18. Someday, hopefully sooner rather than later

It won't take much to get it started, just a few dozen real patriots. But it should be clear to even the dimmest and wimpiest that this is the only way democracy is ever going to return to the US

[salguine]

23. You know, I've thought since I was in high school (early '80s) that there was one day

going to be a genuine people-rise,-torches-and-pitchforks-burn-down-Washington-and-feed-the-legislators-and-CEOs-into-the-guillotine revolution in this country, and at the time I hoped and prayed that it wouldn't happen in my lifetime. Now, I hope and pray that it comes as soon as possible. I would even accept the risk that I wouldn't personally survive it if it meant that we could finally get a government of, by, and for The People back.

[Lorien]

25. I think the problem lies in part with the division that exists between would be

revolutionaries. The teabaggers think that liberals and government itself is the problem and that corporations offer a solution, while we see those who are corrupting our system of government-those same big corporate interests who pull the strings- as the problem.I worry that any revolution would pit Dem against repug instead of those fighting to regain our democracy against the corporate fascists.

[Doctor_J]

30. However, I don't think we can go on the way we are

So something will happen at some point, as soon as a large enough group on our side has had enough of Big Media and the right-wingers in Congress. In any other civilized country, the Limpballs regime would have been overthrown 10-12 years ago, when they were attempting (successfully) to oust the legitimately elected Clinton administration. Then came election theft 2000, 2002, and 2004, LIHOP 9/11, the illegal colonization of Iraq and looting of the treasury that went with it. Big Media think that they can get away with anything because no one has yet fought back, and because too many on the left are afraid to "become like them". But at some point enough of our people will get sufficiently pissed to do something about it, and it might get a little rough, but it will break the fascist stranglehold that Beck and his followers have over us.

[Lorien]

31. I hope that you are right. The Italian government, among many others

has been hopelessly corrupt for ages and no one "rises up"...but then again, look at what happened in Venezuela when their economy collapsed.

[No Elephants]

50. It may be too late. Look at how everyone closed ranks on the protesters of the Sixties.

[defendandprotect]

52. "I would even accept the risk that I wouldn't personally survive it if it meant ...

that we could finally get a government of, by, and for The People back."

The elites have had a lot of practice at this dictatorship stuff --

I think if you look back at least two decades you see the rise of Gestapo like

police enforcement -- at least in regard to protestors -- political gatherings.

Longer if you consider Cointelpro.

The resurrection of TORTURE which many say is intended to frighten all of society --

and I say all societies -- also addresses the willingness to give one's life -- but

few volunteer to be tortured.

I think we have to look to Ghandi and MLK, Jr. -- it has to be peaceful revolution.

Women have been involved in their own peaceful revolution for thousands of years.


Unfortunately, patriarchy and capitalism are such suicidal concepts that the destruction

they have brought about in Global Warming probably limits our time!

[jwirr]

12. What is wrong with our SCOTUS? The only thing we can think is that

they were bought in 2000 and they have stayed bought. Anyone who cannot see that the personhood of corporations is destroying democracy is more than blind - they are willfully blind.

[No Elephants]

51. What's wrong with our SCOTUS? Too many Republican appointees, mostly

by Poppy Bush and Dim Son. Although, sadly, Dim Son was bright enough to appoint young ones.

[benld74]

15. WT BLOODY F IS going on!!!!!!??????

This is nothing more than a blatant AND PLANNED attack!! You damn well better believe it is.
AND this is the response that SAYS it is -

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the Republican Senate campaign committee, said: “It is about a nonprofit group’s ability to speak about the public issue. I can’t think of a more fundamental First Amendment issue.”


Nonprofit group's ability MY slightly FAT ass it is!!!

THis is about the GOP getting MONEY the desperatly NEED, AND at the same time BENDING the PEOPLE OVER a BARREL in order to get it!

[OffWithTheirHeads]

17. Game, set and match. Welcome to the world of Neo-Feudalism

Now things start to get really ugly. The frogs were only aware of a slight change in climate as the pot started to boil. Well, The water is now real close to 100c-220f.

I guess it's time for us to start building Guillotines. American made Guillotines! That's a shovel ready project I can believe in.

[classysassy]

22. For sale to highest bidder

Nothing has changed the crooks in congress are for sale.

[Lorien]

24. But there have been caps that leveled the playing field

now all bets are off.

[boppers]

26. "Citizens United Not Timid" was the original name of the group.

This detail should not be forgotten when trying to figure out the motives of the group.

[gmoney]

27. Holy shit...

Corruption FTW!

[Luciferous]

32. Kick...

Ugh, just when you think things can't get much worse...

[truthisfreedom]

33. I agree with this. It's time for us to have tougher legislation against this corporate crap

And Scotus is doing us a favor by twisting our collective arms. Turn every negative into a positive, people.

[No Elephants]

53. Legislation does not trump the SCOTUS, er, I mean the Constitution.

Once the SCOTUS decision comes down, that's it.

[midnight]

34. Supreme Court Could Slash Campaign Finance Laws

Source: Huffington Post

A ruling is expected as early as Tuesday.

If the justices decide to undo all or part of the past rulings, they could open a door to corporations to participate directly in elections for the first time since a 1907 law, the Tillman Act, barred such spending.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AFL-CIO, National Rifle Association and others on Citizens United's side contend they have a right to be involved in elections.

The government contends the current campaign finance rules are constitutional. The Democratic National Committee is backing the government's position. In a brief co-filed by attorney Bob Bauer, who was later named White House counsel, the DNC argued that if the court swept away corporate spending restrictions, for-profit companies could overwhelm the power of individual small-dollar donors.

The biggest potential change would come if the court grants corporations the same free speech protections now granted individuals under the First Amendment, said Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center, which wants to preserve current law.

..

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/11/supreme-court-campaign-finance_n_418150.html

---

I see this as Coproations continuing their right of personhood. I hope the supreme court sticks with the Feingold/McCain Campaign Reform Act, and tells these folks no. Will undoing the Tillman Act of 1970 do to our elections what removing the Glass Steigal act did to our economy?

[Demeter]

35. And this would be different How?

Just more openly blatant. At least it could be publicly tracked.

[Auggie]

36. If you were ConAgra or Monsanto you could produce and fund your own ad

for the politician of your choice and run it as often as you liked. Imagine the possibilities for firms with deep pockets such that these have.

[No Elephants]

54. Not only ads. It's movies, entire TV stations. We have yet to scratch the surface.

[Auggie]

57. Yeah, that's right: "The Sarah Palin for President TV Comedy Hour"

Oh fuck

[groundloop]

37. This would be a bonanza for big biz, unions should see the writing on the wall and oppose it

Allowing corporations the same free speach rights as citizens is a huge scam. Big business will absolutely overwhelm anyone else with their deep pockets, even unions. Unfortunately, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of big business there's probably no hope of passing any new laws with the current makeup of the Senate, Lie-berman could single handedly kill that effort.

[No Elephants]

55. How are unions going to oppose the Supreme Court?

[flamin lib]

38. Two things:

Antonin Scalia has already said out loud that there is no difference between a person and a corporation in the eyes of the law. Sotomayor disagrees . . .

The only just way to fix campaign finance is tie money to the ballot. If you can cast a vote, you can contribute to candidates and parties. Won't happen 'cause of the right wing SCOTUS and 'cause the guys & gals that reap the benefits of huge lobby money are the ones to have to pass the legislation.

[Jefferson23]

39. Scares me to the bone, it is bad enough now, we don't need it to be worse. n/t

[h9socialist]

40. Until Political Campaigns are publicly financed . . .

. . . the economic "powers that be" will constantly be trying to buy their stake in the political system. This is how capitalism suppresses democracy -- by buying it off. Don't be surprised when pigs like Scalia and Alito conspire to give the whole process back to Wall Street -- that's their mission. The battle for the Left is to expose this fraud for what it is, and establish public financing of campaigns. It will be far cheaper in the long run.

[Piewhacket]

41. yes.

To say corporations have the same rights as a natural person is an
affront and insult to humanity. It isn't so.

Corporations are not people. They have no soul. No conscience.
Corporations are not good citizens. They seek their own bottom
line, not the public good. They are more like vampires than people.

They may suckle greedily at the public trough, but do not carry the
burdens of citizenship. They are not eligible to vote, eligible for public office,
nor for service in the military. They cannot be arrested, serve a prison sentence.
They are immortal. They have but one vulnerability.

Corporations are a creation of law. What law has created,
law may destroy... or limit.

I would surely advcate the impeachment and removal of any Supreme
Court justice who says or thinks otherwise.

[Enrique]

60. how can you say those nasty things about corporations?

they have feelings too, you know. :cry:

[Piewhacket]

64. Thanks. I forgot to mention they have no feelings, only acquisition bloat.

[No Elephants]

42. If that's how you feel, then the only solution is a Constitutional Amendment.

And that will really be an uphill battle, especially since Congress has to pass it before it gets circulated to the states and they are unlikely to halt their own gravy train at this point.

Opening up the Constitution is risky, too, for what people will try to throw into the Constitution and what they will try to take out. Not to mention the crap legislation that will get attached to the bill.

[defendandprotect]

49. We have to end campaign finance bribery . . . one way or another . . .

Dems have done too little about this --

And what could be more urgent that overturning this Supreme Court -- ?

But this is yet one more message from the elites that "we are all safe" from the masses!!

[h9socialist]

62. Turn things over on their ears!

And if the "elites" do go along: tough! Go to Wikipedia and look up Maximillian Robespierre!

[defendandprotect]

65. How do you do that . . .

And have you noticed the right wing now assassinates leaders BEFORE they actually

rise?

Granted, it's harder to do without prominent leaders and their guidance ...

but presume it can be done.

[h9socialist]

66. Well, first of all . . .

. . . you can stop fretting about leaders. Changes in society start at the BOTTOM. The leaders won't change things unless they're forced to. The other thing is to grasp that history provides opportunities in ways you may never dream of. Revolution occurs in ways that surprise even the most dedicated revolutionaries. In our times, the idea of changing civilization starts with the great underlying truth: that the true value of a human being is not denominated or determined by money, capital and property . . . but, rather, by common humanity and global citizenship! After that realization occurs, everything else falls into place. Eventually, the powers-that-be grow brittle, and the status quo becomes unsustainable.

[defendandprotect]

67. "Fretting" . . . ????

Well, first of all . . .
. . . you can stop fretting about leaders.

That would be an odd way to describe the loss of JFK, MLK, Jr., RFK -- and all the

other leadership -- from Betty Friedan to John Lennon to Paul Wellstone -- which helped

raise our consciences and lift our hearts --

Not to mention the McCarthy Era which was an attack on the ideals of democracy and those

in government who believed in them --

The rest I agree with . . .

Changes in society start at the BOTTOM. The leaders won't change things unless they're forced to. The other thing is to grasp that history provides opportunities in ways you may never dream of. Revolution occurs in ways that surprise even the most dedicated revolutionaries. In our times, the idea of changing civilization starts with the great underlying truth: that the true value of a human being is not denominated or determined by money, capital and property . . . but, rather, by common humanity and global citizenship! After that realization occurs, everything else falls into place. Eventually, the powers-that-be grow brittle, and the status quo becomes unsustainable.
Member, Democratic Socialists of America

Happy New Year -- we hope!

[h9socialist]

61. Open it up!

Even Thomas Jefferson didn't imagine it would go on this long without being re-opened. Start stating "freedoms" positiively! No more of this "Congress shall pass no law. . ." bullshit!!! Constitutions are not "Holy Documents." The current one here needs severe updating. Go look at the draft Constitution for the European Union -- that's the kind of document we ought to aim for. Freedoms and rights stated universally, positively and in discernable language.

[No Elephants]

56. How do you propose the left battle the SCOTUS? Once they decide

the First Amendment of the Constiution forbids limits on campaign financing and campaign speech, that's the ballgame. No legislation or Executive Order can trump that decision.

[h9socialist]

59. I know this may come as a shock to some folks . . .

. . . but the Constitution of the United States is damn near 225 years old. A lot has happened since then. Maybe it's time to open the whole damn thing up with another Constitutional Convention. The old one is getting brittle, cynical and senile.

[fascisthunter]

63. put a nail in the coffin of Democracy

elections go to the highest bidders.

[earth mom]

68. Is there any doubt now that the government is nothing but a bunch of gangsters run amok?

:puke: