High Court Decision May Bring ‘Cascade’ of Election Spending (Bloomberg via Business Week)

[struggle4progress]

January 22, 2010, 04:24 AM EST
By Jonathan D. Salant and Lorraine Woellert

Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- ... The ruling may prompt members of Congress to think twice before voting against business interests, out of concern that companies could oppose them with critical advertising, said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a Washington group that supports stronger laws governing campaigns.

“Every time they cast a vote, they potentially face multimillion-dollar campaigns against them,” Wertheimer said of lawmakers.

Mark McKinnon, a media strategist for Bush and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, said the ruling hands more influence to both businesses and unions.

“It’s great for labor, great for big business, and lousy for voters,” McKinnon said. “There’s nobody in America who thinks we need more money in politics or that special interests need more influence” ...

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-22/high-court-decision-may-bring-cascade-of-election-spending.html

[FreakinDJ]

1. Congress to think twice before voting against business interests

Gee - understatement of the year

[hatrack]

2. "May"? Who wrote this POS headline?

:eyes:

[bemildred]

3. I've been considering the spectacle of giant corporations duking it out in the media.

It could get pretty entertaining.

[struggle4progress]

4. That scenario won't play unless certain structural conditions are met: if there are

enough corporations of about the same size with different interests, we might see duke-outs. But since boards of directorates interlock, and many large corporations are diversified across the economy, the perceived interests may not actually diverge much: they won't want to be regulated; they won't want to deal with pesky unions or consumer issues or environmental laws; and so on. In this age of mega-corporations, I don't see many corporate duke-outs on our future TV screens