Court rejects corporate campaign spending limits

In this March 25, 2012, file photo, people visit the Supreme Court in Washington. / AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

(AP) WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday reaffirmed its 2-year-old decision allowing corporations to spend freely to influence elections. The justices struck down a Montana law limiting corporate campaign spending.

By a 5-4 vote, the court's conservative justices said the decision in the Citizens United case in 2010 applies to state campaign finance laws and guarantees corporate and labor union interests the right to spend freely to advocate for or against candidates for state and local offices.

The majority turned away pleas from the court's liberal justices to give a full hearing to the case because massive campaign spending since the January 2010 ruling has called into question some of its underpinnings.

The same five justices said in 2010 that corporations have a constitutional right to be heard in election campaigns. The decision paved the way for unlimited spending by corporations and labor unions in elections for Congress and the president, as long as the dollars are independent of the campaigns they are intended to help. The decision, grounded in the freedom of speech, appeared to apply equally to state contests.

But Montana aggressively defended its 1912 law against a challenge from corporations seeking to be free of spending limits, and the state Supreme Court sided with the state. The state court said a history of corruption showed the need for the limits, even as Justice Anthony Kennedy declared in his Citizens United opinion that independent expenditures by corporations "do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption."

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia, as well as Sen. John McCain and other congressional champions of stricter regulations on campaign money, joined with Montana.

Two liberal justices who were in dissent in Citizens United — Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer — already had challenged Kennedy's view that the independent campaign spending could not be corrupting by virtue of the absence of links to a campaign.

When the court blocked the Montana ruling in February, Ginsburg issued a brief statement for herself and Breyer saying that campaign spending since the decision makes "it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations `do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption."'

Ginsburg appeared to be referring to the rise of unregulated super PACs that have injected millions of dollars into the presidential and other campaigns. She said the case "will give the court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates' allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway."

The corporations that sued over the law said it could not remain on the books after the Citizens United decision.

Montana urged the high court to reject the appeal, or hold arguments and not issue what the court calls a summary reversal. The prevailing side in the lower court almost always strives to avoid high court review. But Montana and its supporters hoped a thorough debate over the Citizens United decision would lead to its reconsideration or at least limits on its reach.

The case is American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock, 11-1179.

[saucymugwump]

American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock and Citizens United, are the financial equivalent of Dred Scott v. Sandford.

We must keep that uppity 99% in its place!

[DassenProf]

When our Legislative Branch (our legislators) and the Executive Branch (our president) decide its time to chnage the corproate income tax rate to 0% so that millions of living wage jobs will return to America, then the campaign spend by corporations can be eliminated.

It would be grossly unfair to expect corporations to be taxed to the hilt and yet have no voice in choosing the government that taxes them.

That'd be TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.

[rightontarget]

Change the corporate income tax to 0%??? Really???? You must be joking!!! The "trickel down" economic theory just doesn't work. Those so called "job creators" have created nothing but bigger bonuses for their executives and bigger dividends for their stockholders. They have done absolutely NOTHING for the working middle class. GREED has taken over. The more profit margin they make the more they want. Nobody is saying that corporations can have "no voice" in choosing government BUT they should NOT BE ALLOWED TO BUY THEMSELVES POLITICIANS EITHER. It's about corruption pure and simple. Money buys power and THAT is what needs to be LIMITED.

[saucymugwump]

You either have not been paying attention for the past 20-30 years or you just swallow everything Faux News says without thinking.

Visit the below URL from the Wall Street Journal, a publication not noted for liberal thinking. Note how it reported that Bush the Younger's job creation record was the worst since WWII. And if you argue that Obama's record will be worse, remember that he continued Bush's tax cuts.

And then note in that chart that Reagan's job creation record pales in comparison to that of Clinton. BTW, Reagan cut taxes and Clinton raised them.

The only jobs created by Reagan / Bush tax cuts are located in China and India due to outsourcing.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/01/09/bush-on-jobs-the-worst-track-record-on-record/
http://saucymugwump.blogspot.com/2010/01/americas-lost-decade-for-jobs.html
http://saucymugwump.blogspot.com/2010/10/tale-of-two-countries-trade-and-budget.html

[fiddlestickawshucks]

Of course SCOTUS reversed the Montana law.!!

For ANYBODY; much less a SC Judge; to say corporations do not "buy" influence is probably the biggest, most ridiculous statement ever.!!

Kennedy should be hospitalized in a psychiatric facility immediately.

Huge campaign contributions and lobbyists create more influence and corruption than the Mafia, and the average American might just as well not bother to let their Congressional representative know what they want, don't want, need etc., because it has about as much influence as spitting in the ocean.

This is almost as disgusting as Obama asking our troops to pay for their own health insurance.!!

I vote that the Prime Minister of Australia's name be put on the ballot immediately.!!

The next steps to be taken would be for Americans to demand Congressional Reform, one person-one vote, eliminate SCOTUS and pay Congress and the President $1 a year.

Buying INFLUENCE and LOBBYISTS should be eliminated immediately.!!

No wonder you can't trust these people any further than you can throw the Brooklyn Bridge.

If not for a bunch of bought and paid for, corrupt Congress and a President who wants to make the US the Divided States of Obama; we wouldn't be in this mess.!!!

This is me screaming in frustration; AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH.!!!

[thefatcat2]

DEMOCRATS SAY:
It is OK for Unions to Give 1/2 Billion Dollars to Democrats
every Presidential Election BUT Corporations can't Give One Single Dime ----- They call this Fair ---- Hmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnnn

[sevdalisk]

The 5-4 vote on Citizens United in 2010 is about as scary as it gets! When you have 5 SMART people who say to the world ""it's exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations `do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption"....this defies gravity and common sense. Reminds me of the ceo's of tobacco companies, testifying before Congress, and each ceo said 'nicotine is not addicting'. History is FULL of money corrupting everybody and even an "apple" corrupted one innocent person(if you believe in that version). The 5 are telling us that USA has rose above any gestures and thoughts of corruption in our political system, and we can all not worry about the little guy getting pushed aside by wheelbarrows of cash from the job creators!
The irony of it all is that the 'cost of persuasion' is probably passed on to us consumers in higher prices! The American dream is becoming the "vision" for how to take advantage of the system and the frightened workers.

[WHAT-IS-HE-SMOKING]

Yep, some more "BEST POLITICANS MONEY CAN BUY".

[icjunior97]

This is a outrage, so much for small government. This was for state and local offices! Well money will now always pick who is going to be in office, our choices will be limited by this.

[vernique3]

This agreement was probably reached by the super pacs and some supreme court justices who met to discuss the best way destroy the middle class.

[tryingtodogoodwork]

Disgusting ruling. Oh, how we need one of these regressives to retire and a fine progressive president (President Barack Obama) appoint a fine progressive judge.

In the history of the United States Supreme Court, the Citizens United ruling is the single worst, most destructive, most abhorrent.

[fredrickh]

Good ruling. Progressives and liberals only seem to want to limit the corporate donations while allowing the unions to steal workers dues to donate to their candidates. In the case of public unions it's is tax payer money that gets taken and given back to big pro government candidates creating a corrupt viscous cycle. You want to lessen corporate interest - them take out the unions influence too - but that would never have with such a fine progressive pandering president that we have now. Only good thing Bush did was appoint Roberts and Alito - may they have long and healthy lives.

[credibility2]

Why Montana would try and challenge a federal law on this, knowing that state law can't circumvent federal law shows how goofy they were and how they just wasted a lot of taxpayer money to argue the point.