Corporate congressional bribery now unrestricted under the law

January 22, 2010 [print_link]

By Paul Lehto

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion.

The five justice majority opinion, written by Kennedy, effectively declares that corporate treasury money has a constitutional right to be used in an unlimited fashion in campaign politics because it is protected by the First Amendment. This reverses approximately a century of congressional and state regulation of campaign finance. See http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf

The US Supreme Court case called Austin v. Michigan (494 U.S. 652 (1990)) is overruled.

The US Supreme Court case McConnell v FEC (2003) upholding limits on independent corporate expenditures is also overruled.

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Stevens, in partial dissent, wrote a 90 page dissent, joined by Sotomayor and Ginsburg and Breyer. Exactly what “Partial” means has to be sorted out still since this is breaking… The partial dissent by Thomas complains about the one part of the majority opinion upholding disclosure requirements. Without disclosure, the candidate contributions would be not only unlimited but effectively secret.

TECHNICALLY: The Citizens United case is reversed in part, affirmed in part, and remanded. However, the affirmed part is only as to requiring disclosure by Citizens United, the reversal is much bigger and strikes down any right on the part of the government to regulate corporations like Citizens United in any campaign activity.

This is a revolution against democracy, because We the People are being handcuffed and rendered helpless (by the courts) to have any kind of order in campaign finance. Rights are supposed to protect We the People from our government. Now the Supreme Court has weaponized the Constitution for use against We the People in elections of representatives to hold OUR power.

The ONLY thing preventing corporate charities from spending money on political campaigns is 501 (c)(3) federal law and regulations. These are federal laws of the same status as campaign finance regulations. One really has to wonder whether this will destabilize confidence in charities as well, who may decide to spend charitable contributions on politics and then challenge any restrictions on that as unconstitutional.

Paul Lehto is an independent legal scholar and author of many legal encyclopedia articles.