General Discussion

ashling

(25,771 posts) Mon Jan 26, 2015, 01:45 PM Jan 2015

The true cost of Citizens United: The Roberts Court’s darkest hour revisited

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/24/the_true_cost_of_citizens_united_the_roberts_courts_darkest_hour_revisited/

Reclaim the Constitution

It is key that the Court recognize our Constitution’s core values of equal voice and democratic accountability, and adopt a more common sense standard for corruption (one supported by a majority of Americans). Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said, “if there is one decision I would overrule, it is Citizens United. I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.” Leading First Amendment scholar and former University of Chicago Law School dean Geoffrey Stone writes “that these five justices persist in invalidating these regulations under a perverse and unwarranted interpretation of the First Amendment is, to be blunt, a travesty. These decisions will be come to be counted as among the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court.” That’s quite a feat for our Supreme Court, given its ugly history.

Getting money out of politics should not be a partisan issue – a recent survey of likely voters finds that likely voters (including Republicans) are more apt to support than oppose public matching funds for small donations and public funding for elections. Majorities from both parties support disclosing corporate spending (see chart) and more than a million people have signed a petition supporting a proposed SEC rule to require publicly traded corporations to disclose their political spending.

The problem, of course, is that the same people who benefit from money in politics are pulling the strings right now. The American citizens are united in opposing money in politics. Now, we need a mass movement from ordinary Americans to take back our democracy.