I guess that's what you'd call it today, though in the grand sweep of history I think it's indicative of the crackpots' determination to drive our political and legal discourse further and further to the extreme crackpot fringe. They're just not getting too greedy too quickly---which shouldn't surprise us since they've been nothing if not patient when it comes to getting their agenda enacted. Shit, they've had Social Security in their crosshairs for 70 years, and they've managed to push the debate on "entitlements" so far in their direction that it is now the conventional wisdom of all Serious Persons in Washington that the program is unsustainable and needs overhauling, even though neither of those things is remotely true.
To be frank, I think this decision bodes far worse for the Republic in the near term than the Arizona immigration ruling because, well, it's a variation of the Dred Scott principle applied to campaign finance:
The Supreme Court has struck down a Montana ban on corporate political money, ruling 5 to 4 that the controversial 2010 Citizens United ruling applies to state and local elections.The court broke in American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock along the same lines as in the original Citizens United case, when the court ruled that corporate money is speech and thus corporations can spend unlimited amounts on elections.
“The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law,” the majority wrote. “There can be no serious doubt that it does.”
No arguments were heard; it was a summary reversal.
“To the extent that there was any doubt from the original Citizens United decision broadly applies to state and local laws, that doubt is now gone,” said Marc Elias, a Democratic campaign lawyer. “To whatever extent that door was open a crack, that door is now closed.”
Get ready for 25 years of carpet-bomb campaigning, or however long it takes for the members of The Federalist Five die off. As mentioned yesterday, we'd better start stringing together some presidential wins if we want to avoid being buried for good.
---Vitelius
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