The Austin decision, written by late Justice Thurgood Marshall, held that the government had an interest in preventing "the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's political ideas."
The majority decision on Thursday, however, rejected this "antidistortion" rationale, saying that "if the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech." The court further held, citing a string of other campaign-finance cases, that the government cannot equalize the relative voice of citizens and associations during political campaigns by prohibiting speech. "All speakers, including individuals and the media, use money amassed from the economic marketplace to fund their speech. The First Amendment protects the resulting speech."
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/22/in_landmark_campaign_finance_ruling_supreme
President Obama’s Weekly Address
Posted: 23 Jan 2010 04:35 AM PST
President decries Supreme Court ruling, vows legislative response
This week, the United States Supreme Court issued its controversial ruling on corporate financing in the landmark decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In his weekly address the President expressed displeasure with the outcome, criticizing the 5-4 decision by saying,
“This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy. It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way or to punish those who don’t. That means that any public servant who has the courage to stand up to the special interests and stand up for the American people can find himself or herself under assault come election time. Even foreign corporations can now get into the act. I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest.”
The President went on to pledge an aggressive legislative response to the Court ruling.
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