US ends limits on campaign funding

[CHIMO]

The US supreme court has ended limits on corporate spending for US political campaigns, which will effect this year's congressional races and the 2012 presidential contest.

The 5-4 ruling on Thursday was a defeat for the law's supporters who said that ending the limits would unleash a flood of corporate money into the political system to promote or defeat candidates.

The ruling by the conservative majority transformed the political landscape and the rules on how money can be spent in future presidential and congressional elections, which have already broken new spending records with each political cycle.

The justices on Thursday overturned supreme court precedents from 2003 and 1990 that upheld federal and state limits on independent expenditures by corporate treasuries to support or oppose candidates.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/2010121172017409920.html

John Bonifaz on the Democrats’ Stunning Loss in Massachusetts and the Forthcoming Supreme Court Ruling on Corporate Financing of Elections

JUAN GONZALEZ: John, I wanted to turn to another subject. The Supreme Court has announced it will hold a special public session today at 10:00 a.m. There’s speculation the Court will issue its long-awaited decision in one of the most important campaign finance cases in years. The case is Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. As a longtime advocate for campaign finance reform, can you talk more about the significance of this case?

JOHN BONIFAZ: There’s no question that this case is being closely watched by people around the country who care about the integrity of our elections and whether or not the right to vote will be upheld and people be able to have their voice heard in the political process.

What this decision could do, according to the way the Supreme Court is moving it forward, is it could involve overturning a century-old precedent that prohibits corporate money in our elections and would essentially allow corporations to spend billions and billions of dollars of their general treasury funds in our campaigns, drowning out political voices, ordinary citizens’ political voices. And that is a complete danger to our democracy. It ought to be seen as a direct threat.

And obviously, the hope is that the Court will not go all that way. But if they do, organizations like Voter Action, where I serve as legal director, and others will be leading the charge to say we’ve got to stop treating corporations as persons under the First Amendment. And we certainly make sure that corporations not have free speech rights in the political process. So voteraction.org is a place people should go to hear about the response.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/21/john_bonifaz_on_the_democrats_stunning
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2010/jan/video/dnB20100121a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=00:47:58

[Faux pas]

1. F-A-Doodle-Doo. Guess my new voting strategy is to vote for the

person with the least amount of campaign funds. That's what I loved about Jerry Brown (ex and future calif gov) riding a bus and eating tuna sandwiches out of a brown paper page. I still think he would have made a great Prez.