At midnight last night, Maryland candidates submitted their 2010 campaign finance reports to the State Board of Elections. Annapolis watchers are gleefully analyzing what members and challengers have raised, and their all-important cash on hand. Look no further than Maryland Politics Watch to see the dissection unfold.
In a quirk of timing, however, the Supreme Court today handed down a momentous campaign finance law ruling on the same day. That hightly anticipated ruling comes in the case Citizens United v. FEC.
Prior to today, it was “firmly embedded” in US law that Congress and the states could prohibit corporations and labor unions from using their treasuries to finance campaigns to elect or defeat candidates. Individuals, however, could make such independent expenditures as a form of First Amendment expression. In the Citizens United decision, a 5-4 majority rejected that distinction, and elevated a corporation’s right to engage in direct expenditure electioneering over the public’s interest in level playing field.
For a full analysis, I recommend SCOTUSblog, the blog published by my friend and law firm colleague Tom Goldstein, one of the nation’s most preeminent Supreme Court practitioners. But a short analysis comes from Justice Stevens’ dissent: the majority is ”gutting campaign finance laws across the country.”
It’s a new world now, one in which a candidate’s own campaign account may be irrelevant compared to the treasuries of interested industries.
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Today’s Supreme Court decision just reinforces the need for strong legislators who are willing to at least take hold of state campaign finance laws to prevent the complete take over of all levels of goverment by corporations – who are not “people!”