Supreme Court Seeks To Obsolete Itself

Here's a headline that appeared today: "Supreme Court rejects limits on Corporate Spending in Political Campaigns."  Well, of course they did.  What else could be expected from the Roberts court?  Especially when they took the unusual step of reaching out to consider this issue when nothing required them to do so? 

I won't reiterate here the reasons I think this predictable       
decision is poppycock (and I don't mean the candied   
popcorn treat by ConAgra), but you can read them here.   

The problem, of course, is that corporations, if not restrained, have so much greater financial power than any small group of citizens that they can completely dominate political discussion.  We need look no further than the public debate on health care to demonstrate this. 

Further, in giving corporations free rein to spend their money to advocate for one candidate or another, the Court effectively grants them license to infringe the free speech of two groups -- those who, through corporate spending, could be denied access to the print and electronic media, AND their own stockholders, not all of whom might condone the company's promoting a candidate whom they (stockholders) do not approve.   Stockholders might have some recourse to challenge spending by their corporation, but only to a very limited degree.)

Today's decision, which reverses a host of precedents as recent as six years ago, is a clear case of the "judicial activism" conservative jurists and politicians profess to deplore.  Realistically, though, we all know that if a decision goes in the direction you prefer, it's not "activism" but "what the framers intended."  This special effort by the Court to reverse precedent -- clearly with anticipation of what the decision would be -- further sullies the Court's already tattered reputation for wisdom and impartiality.  Ultimately, with a few more artful judicial interpretations, I suppose we'll have corporate execs making our legal decisions for us too; then we won't need the "Supremes." 

Comments

[KKW]

WHAT were they thinking...or were they?