In a decision that shows the extended impact of the Supreme
Court's Citizens United ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia struck down limits on contributions to
political groups that spend money to support or oppose candidates.
The
court found that the $5,000 annual limit on contributions to such groups
is unconstitutional, writing that the Citizens United ruling "resolves
this appeal," in favor of SpeechNow.org, a group that seems to have been
started with the specific purpose of challenging campaign-finance
regulations.
SCOTUSblog concludes that this ruling "significantly
broadens the impact of Citizens United, extending its constitutional
reasoning from campaign spending to campaign donations."
Unless
something is done quickly - like amending the Constitution to say that
corporations aren't persons and don't get Bill of Rights protections -
we can expect to see more and more of our elected officials having to
bow to the wishes of the world's largest corporations or get creamed by
multi-million dollar corporate financed ad campaigns.
Thom Hartmann is a Project Censored Award-winning New York Times best-selling author, and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk program on the Air America Radio Network, live noon-3 PM ET. www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," "We The People," "What Would Jefferson Do?," "Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle (more...)