The Rule of the (Wealthy) Few
By now you have probably heard that five of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court cannot think of any reason why corporations doing business in this country should be prevented from spending as much money as they want to defeat a political candidate or policy that is not to their liking, or to elect one that is. For more than sixty years there have been campaign finance rules in place that prohibit corporations from spending their own money on the production and distribution of campaign ads. However, on January 21, 2010, the Court ruled in a five-to-four decision that if it’s their money, a corporation can spend as much as it wants to produce and run campaign ads. In other words, Corporation X cannot give a dime to Candidate Smith, but a handful of executives who call the shots can pony up millions of dollars of the corporation’s assets to promote her campaign. Or suppose those same corporate executives don’t like Smith’s opponent, Candidate Jones. Too bad for Jones, becaus