24 States’ Laws Open to Attack After Campaign Finance Ruling

[Frank Booth]

Source: NY Times

24 States’ Laws Open to Attack After Campaign Finance Ruling

A day after the United States Supreme Court ruled that the federal government may not ban political spending by corporations or unions in candidate elections, officials across the country were rushing to cope with the fallout, as laws in 24 states were directly or indirectly called into question by the ruling.

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The states that explicitly prohibit independent expenditures by unions and corporations will be most affected by the ruling. The decision, however, has consequences for all states, since they are now effectively prohibited from adopting restrictions on corporate and union spending on political campaigns.

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For now, the decision does not overturn all the state laws in question, but it is only a matter of time, experts said, before the laws will be challenged in the courts or repealed by state legislatures. Since the state laws are vulnerable, it is unlikely that officials will continue enforcing them, experts said.

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Richard Hasen, an election law specialist at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said he expected state judicial races to be especially affected by the Supreme Court decision.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/us/politics/23states.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Tom Delay's lawyers have already seized on the decision to argue that the charges against him should be dropped.

Just as how the current version of "free trade" leads to a race to the bottom in terms of wages and environmental standards, this Supreme Court decision will lead to a race to the bottom in terms of ethics.

There will be a race to exceed other politicians in degree of corruption, as only the most corrupt will receive the financing necessary to win.

[customerserviceguy]

1. I have an important question about that

Did the SCOTUS decision affect laws that require reporting of contributions, i.e., who's making them, what amount, etc.?

That may be the only way to fight this in the short term, before we can get a Constitutional Amendment. If we know that Candidate X is heavily funded by large corporations, Candidate X's opponent can use that.

[Frank Booth]

2. The decision didn't lift the ban on direct contributions to candidates.

So, Smith & Wesson, for example, can't donate $2,400 a year directly to Sarah Palin for President '12.

However, Smith & Wesson is now free to run as many tv/radio/whatever ads it wants supporting Sarah Palin or criticizing her opponent. This activity does have to be reported, however, and the ad would require an attribution at the end (e.g., proudly paid for by the patriots at S&W).

Clarence Thomas joined in the decision, of course, but he did not join in the part of the decision that upheld disclaimer and disclosure requirements. Thomas would like to give corporations the right to make any political "speech" they so desired, without having to disclose the source to anyone.

[Sgent]

3. Nope

The vote was 8-1 to uphold the reporting requirements in the law.

[benld74]

4. MORE MONEY for LAWYERS Coming in 3,2,1,,,,

[Maineman]

5. Corporations are not persons

Here is another example of why corporations should not be funding (buying) U.S. politicians.

"This week, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al-Saud of Saudi Arabia — the largest shareholder of News Corp outside the Murdoch family — endorsed Rupert Murdoch’s son James to succeed the elder Murdoch when he retires. Alwaleed, King Abdullah’s nephew, is Saudi Arabia’s richest person and the world’s 22nd wealthiest (Murdoch is number 132). He holds large stakes in many American companies, including Citi. The prince met with Murdoch last week to discuss a “future potential alliance with News Corp,” and he told Charlie Rose Wednesday about his respect for the Murdoch dynasty.

CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PERSONS !!!

[SnakeEyes]

6. I think the more interesting part is that...

26 states allow corporate political contributions. Wow.

[PhilipJ]

7. that's fine now we can tell the reps 2 take a hike. we can rep ourselves

think about it really especially while the topic is hot about equal rights, with the modern day technology, our issues with congress deciding whats best for us regardless what we want, and the fact that we are the grantors of those powers to the congress. why do you think the pre-amble starts out with "we the people" and the 10th amendment Powers of the States and People says "The powers not delegated" "are reserved"(meaning we never waived them) "to the people"?