Extraordinary interpretation of the First Amendment

An extraordinary decision by the Supreme Court...

Ruling on Spending May Alter Political Terrain — "Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. The 5-to-4 decision was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said that allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace would corrupt democracy. The ruling represented a sharp doctrinal shift, and it will have major political and practical consequences. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision to reshape the way elections were conducted. Though the decision does not directly address them, its logic also applies to the labor unions that are often at political odds with big business...."

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What role should a corporation be allowed to play in a democracy? Did the public, in 1791 when the First Amendment was adopted, envisage the world of today?

The amount of money that is currently spent on elections to "buy" votes should be alarming enough to those seriously interested in creating and sustaining an educated democracy. This ruling by the Supreme Court will result in a tsunami of money being employed by corporate interests to further their own well-being. The Supreme Court has, by this decision, made a mockery of free speech and of the necessity of a fairly educated public for a thriving democracy.