Essentially the end of the United States as you know it. http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/21/supreme.court.analysis/index.html Corps are now private citizens and can give as much money as they want to candidates. This basically means that elected officials we be employees of the largest corporations. This will be the end of the United States.
Then the public needs to step up their efforts. More watchdog sights. Better grassroots. If a guy is voting in favor of corporations and now the people, vote his ass out.
Perhaps you should do research before you whine? Corporations still can't give money directly to federal campaigns. Now they can simply post billboards and media ads. I don't see what the big problem is. link
So they can only provide direct media campaigns for the candidates? What the fuck else do you think the campaign would use the money for?
That was the funniest thing I've read in awhile.. Sug, if it makes you feel any better - and it won't because it doesn't for me - it was decided long ago by the court that corporations are essentially people. In fact the history surrounding the decision is quite interesting, but I'll leave that to your personal research. In my mind that is one of the greatest mistakes/flaws that the court has made and couldn't be further from the intention of the framers. But..here we are.
Newspapers and news channels could spend as much time as they wanted endorsing a candidate (explicitly or not)... but organizations founded for political reasons could not? It is ridiculous. Greenpeace and the NRA and Nike and the Wall Street Journal and whatever other corporations should all play by the same rules. I have no problem with today's ruling and I think it makes the law much more consistent for entities of different types. Ed O.
I hate politics. Having worked on local campaigns, I am convinced that the canidate with more money has a huge advantage in elections. Allowing corporations to do this is so wrong in my opinion.
People have a 1st amendment right of free association to petition the government. A corporation or a union or a PAC is an organization of free association (well, arguably unions). I don't see how the supreme court could rule otherwise. In fact, if govt. is allowed to limit speech (and spending), you end up with guys like Ted sitting in the Senate for 40+ years.
IMO, it doesn't matter if the corporation/special interest is or isn't giving money directly to the campaign. The candidate is beholden to their interests either way and that sucks. And really, it's no different than it's ever been, so whatever. Just makes me even more disgruntled and makes me care about politics even less......again.
The problem isn't that corporations can influence the candidates, it's that the govt. is too big that it's worth trying to buy a candidate.
