Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission

Click on the heading, above, to link to the full text of the SCOTUS opinion.

From today's Huffinton Post.com:

Jason Linkins: The Supreme Court's Citizen United Decision Is Terrifying

As you may have heard, in a 5-4 decision, the SCOTUS essentially went at the teeth of McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform with hammer and tongs.

Key excerpts from Justice Stevens' excellent dissenting opinion:

The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.

Essentially, five Justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.

The Court operates with a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel when it strikes down one of Congress’ most significant efforts to regulate the role that corporations and unions play in electoral politics. It compounds the offense by implicitly striking down a great many state laws as well...

It is all the more distressing that our colleagues have manufactured a facial challenge, because the parties have advanced numerous ways to resolve the case that would facilitate electioneering by nonprofit advocacy corporations such as Citizens United, without toppling statutes and precedents. Which is to say, the majority has transgressed yet another “cardinal” principle of the judicial process: “[I]f it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more,”...

Stare decisis protects not only personal rights involving property or contract but also the ability of the elected branches to shape their laws in an effective and coherent fashion. Today’s decision takes away a power that we have long permitted these branches to exercise.State legislatures have relied on their authority to regulate corporate electioneering, confirmed in Austin, for more than a century.20 The Federal Congress has relied on this authority for a comparable stretch of time, and it specifically relied on Austin throughout the years it spent developing and debating BCRA. The total record it compiled was 100,000 pages long.21 Pulling out the rug beneath Congress after affirming the constitutionality of §203 six years ago shows great disrespect for a coequal branch...

The only relevant thing that has changed since Austin and McConnell is the composition of this Court.