Supreme Court's momentous decision will derail any financial reform (Talton | Seattle Times)

[struggle4progress]

Conservative Supreme Court justices believe in following precedent and narrowly interpreting the Constitution, except when they don't. Today's decision on corporate campaign spending is such an example and it will have far-reaching consequences.

The five-justice majority set aside a century of precedents and conveyed essentially full First Amendment speech rights on corporations in ruling that campaign finance limits are unconstitutional. It could unleash up to $1 trillion in corporate money for attack ads in the next election cycle. It also is the culmination of a century of creeping personhood conveyed on corporate entities, beginning with a case involving the Southern Pacific railroad.

Points made in John Paul Stevens' dissent, are instructive: He said the new ruling is dangerous for democracy and risks having average citizens believe their votes don't matter against the power of corporations in elections. "The Framers thus took it as a given that corporations could be comprehensively regulated in the service of the public welfare ... they had little trouble distinguishing corporations from human beings, and when they constitutionalized the right to free speech in the First Amendment, it was the free speech of individual Americans that they had in mind" ...

Corporations -- including foreign ones -- already spend hundreds of millions of (their shareholders) dollars lobbying Washington in a way that ordinary citizens can't match. The result has been a policy environment that already tilts to their interests. E.g., the coal and utility industries on climate change. Bottom line: Any thoughts by President Obama or lawmakers of effectively re-regulating the financial giants that brought the world economy to the brink of collapse died today ...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/soundeconomywithjontalton/2010852368_supreme_courts_momentous_decis.html