Supreme Court campaign finance decision changes everything

The Supreme Court Building, photo courtesy the government website

Geologists know that earthquakes like the Haitian one last week are often followed by equally destructive aftershocks.

But no one expected that days after Scott Brown’s election to the Senate radically altered the political landscape, that the U.S. Supreme Court would pour gasoline on fundamental assumptions underlying campaign finance laws and toss a match on them.

In a landmark 5-to-4 decision, the high court ruled that the government cannot ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion.

Just as in Haiti, where it will take time to assess the devastation caused by the earthquake, it is too early to fully comprehend the impact this decision will have on federal, state and local elections.

Even here in Wisconsin, where election laws are among the strongest in the nation, independent contributions, that is, money, have had a disturbing influence on campaigns.

U.S. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy

The state’s largest business lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, is credited with bankrolling the last two victorious candidates for the state’s Supreme Court. Liberal groups are not shy about throwing money at candidates and causes they support, too.

Neither party was overly enthusiastic about supporting Feingold and McCain’s proposed law. It took the Enron scandal and other similarly egregious examples of corporate malfeasance during the last decade to make inaction untenable.

In fact, a newly elected Sen. Hillary Clinton took Sen. Feingold to task, at the time, for pushing reforms that would limit either party’s ability to raise money.

So, it will be interesting to see if Congress has the spine to right this wrong, and Senators Feingold and McCain may likely once again be treated as pariahs. Stay tuned.

The current United States Supreme Court, in 2009. Photo courtesy Wikipedia entry. Top row (left to right): Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Bottom row (left to right): Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Antonin G. Scalia, and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas.