So what can be done about the SCOTUS decision?

[dsc]

First, let's be sure we understand what it did, and did not, allow.

Federal campaign law has, since Watergate, limited individuals to $2400 in donations per election (primary and general both count) so you max out at $4800. Seperately people are limited to $30,400 to the federal campaign committees. Corporations, and labor unions, since 1907 have been banned from giving at all to any of the above. All of those rules still are in place.

Under Buckley v Rodeo, individuals were permitted to spend unlimited funds on their own campaigns. Thus Perot could spend millions of his fortune to run for President in 1992 and again in 1996. That case still stands.

What happened under Citezens United is that corporations and labor unions are now permitted to spend as much as they wish, whenever they wish, to run independent campaigns. Any direct regulation of such spending has to be within the confines of the first amendment.

First, what we can't do. We can't just reban the contributions or repass McCain Feingold.

We can do some regulation of corporations. One we could make shareholders agree to the spending. Depending on the margin required this could be a fairly simple requirement or a very onerous one. It would seem that at the very least, the same opt out provisions that are required of unions should be required of corporations. Two, we could ban federal contractors from running federal campaigns, as we currently ban federal employees from contributing. Three we could refuse to exempt such spending from taxes. Four, we could ban foreign owned companies from engaging in such spending just as we forbid foreign citizens from doing so now.

None of this ends the problem and nothing short of a Constituional Amendment will solve the problem.

[jwirr]

1. How does this effect groups like Sierra Club and other non-profit

groups that are usually liberal?

[dsc]

2. they can do the same stuff as any other corporations

meaning they could run unlimited independent campaigns.

[customerserviceguy]

3. I'll be looking for some leadership from the President

on this issue in his SOTU address. He has no formal role in the amendment process, but he can lead on it. If we can get a vote where 100% of the Democratic Senators and Representatives vote for a constitutional amendment, and the Repukes kill it, we can use it as an election issue this fall.

On the other hand, if he just spends his speech trying to find some Rube Goldberg mechanism to get the steaming mess that is currently configured as HCR through, then he's just going to lead us to certain defeat in November. Maybe he'll figure out how to push off of a Rethuglican Congress as a way to get re-elected in 2012, but when Bill Clinton did that, we got some pretty bad legislation, a lack of any good legislation, and an impeachment trial, anyway.

[Oldtimeralso]

4. If there is such a thing as corporate personhood,

others have pointed out that in the case that was used to establish that may have been corrupted. Foreign citizens are forbidden from contributing to campaigns, why not have not just foreign owned corporations be prohibited one can stretch that to the idea that a corporation with any foreign citizens as shareholders should thus be prohibited. I can tell you that as a longtime contributor to a major labor union's PAC that I had to certify to that PAC that I was an American citizen.

[DaveofCali]

5. Disclosure rules could be improved so that voters know who's really behind the ads

That way a corporation can't simply make another corporation just to engage in political activities, the identity of the parent corporation has to be disclosed in political advertisements.

Remember, illicit activity is encouraged as long as the culprits' identity can remain hidden. Many corporations would be reluctant to be directly involved in politics if their customers and shareholders knew what they were doing, they would be afraid of a backlash (and could tarnish the brand name of the corporation.)

[provis99]

6. there's really nothing that can be done, by passing laws, at least.

An Amendment stating that corporations are not people is about the best we could hope for, I think.