Will corporate ads buy 2010 voters? (Thiemer |AP via WaPo)

[struggle4progress]

By SHARON THEIMER
The Associated Press
Friday, January 22, 2010; 3:39 AM

... From the corporate titans of the early 20th century bribing candidates, to Watergate in the 1970s, Democratic fundraising scandals during the Clinton years in the 1990s and most recently, the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling case, Congress has periodically tried to rein in political spending only to have loopholes emerge or political players mount successful constitutional challenges to the rules.

The court seemed to sweep those concerns aside, saying that it doubted election-time ads could lead to the corruption of lawmakers and that in any case, proponents of the ban hadn't provided any proof of corruption.

Campaign finance watchdogs predict members of Congress now will cast their votes on controversial legislation with an eye to whether their position on it risks inviting a barrage of special-interest ads against them before the election, or on the flip side, could draw outside spending favorable to them.

"I just think the court got it dead wrong if it thinks that a $10 million expenditure in a campaign can't buy influence of a corrupting nature the same way that a $10 million contribution can," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, who pressed for the ban on election-season corporate- and union-financed ads that the court swept away ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012200659.html

[AllHereTruth]

1. They already do

Now it gets worse. Democracy is on its way out. It is time to deal with it or do something about it...