Something else this week for the so-called “progressives” to knash their teeth about! Oh dear!

High court voids curbs on political ad spending

In a decision with profound implications for the role of money in American campaigns, the Supreme Court on Thursday gave interest groups, unions and corporations the right to pour money into issue advertising in political races – reigniting the passionate battle over the influence of cash on the electoral process.

The 5-4 decision punched a hole in the complex web of federal campaign-finance laws and rules in finding that those groups should have the same rights to spend money on political ads as any person. Direct contributions by corporations and unions to individual candidates are still forbidden.

This does NOT just affect organizations. Having access to effective political speech means having access to mass media. This means paying for advertising. If one is not a George Soros with piles of cash at hand, there is no serious way for an individual on their own to make their voice heard in the political marketplace.

However, if a group of like-minded individuals gets together, pools their resources, and enters the political fray, according to the McCain-Feingold law this was rendered illegal, since all groups were prohibited from political speech at the time of an election. Never mind that the specific reason that the 1st Amendment was enacted was to especially protect political speech!

Supporters cheered the ruling, which they said returns the country to the core free-speech precept that political speech should be protected, no matter who or what is speaking.

Critics warned that the foundations of American democracy are at stake and that big businesses will be able to spend enough money to influence elections.

…also big unions, and political action groups of all sorts. Remember, in spite of the weeping and wailing of the left, a lot of corporations’ leaders are demonstrably biased to the left. Besides, many corporations will be reluctant to be too outspoken, since a sizable part of their customer base will be partisans of the party they might oppose (which ever side is favored).

In stark language, the court acknowledged that it was overturning its own precedents, but Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing the majority opinion, said the justices were now returning to “ancient First Amendment principles.”

Yes! This is critical! It’s past time to recognize once again the fundamental source of our “unalienable rights” obtained from the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as immortally stated in the Declaration of Independence. If this reasoning is removed from consideration, as it the common practice of the day in the world of political science, there is no other principle to base rights on other than the Maoist justification that “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” THAT’s why they wrote the Bill of Rights in the first place, to make SURE that those unalienable rights were spelled out in more detail than the original Constitutional text itself.

“The government may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but it may not suppress that speech altogether,” Justice Kennedy wrote in an opinion overturning a 1990 case and part of a separate 2003 case that upheld most of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance laws, enacted in 2002.

This sounds about right, as far as it goes. The same principle now needs to be extended even further. The minority dissenting opinion accidentally highlights this need:

[Justice Stevens] said the ruling turns over power to corporations and unions at the expense of political parties, who will have a tough time fighting back because of the restrictions on their own fundraising and spending.

Use the same standards of disclosure and disclaimer for political parties as there will be for OTHER organizations…and turn THEM loose too! Here’s one Mao idea that would work, if ACTUALLY implemented: “Let 1000 flowers bloom.”