Supremes Will Reconsider Citizens United

Seemingly miraculously, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case from Montana that challenges the infamous Citizens United decision. Justices Ginsburg and Breyer are saying that by accepting this case, it gives the Supreme Court a chance to backpedal on their decision, one that has dealt a hand in the 2012 election that no one would have ever suspected.

See, the 5 conservative members of the Supreme Court, in coming to this infamous decision, had a narrow view of how this could help the conservative cause. Help conservatives win elections. Because, obviously, in their minds, corporations want to support conservatives, certainly not liberals.

Now we find that this is not the case, having weathered months of heavy corporate spending in the new super PACs. Turns out, the paradigm wasn’t true. Corporations don’t march in lockstep to support conservatives. They march in lockstep to support winners.

And sometimes winners are Democrats.

But not only that, the Citizens United decision has changed how we do politics in America. Had Citizens United not become the law of the land, I think it is a safe assumption that Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich would both have thrown in the towel by now. Ron Paul is another matter as he marches to a different drum. So Super PACs have radically altered the political playing field in the conservative race, more than the conservative justices may have anticipated, or desired.

The Montana case concentrates on states issues, that the Citizens United decision goes up against Montana state law and tradition. That Citizens United must be applied only in federal elections. But you know, I doubt the Supremes will limit their second decision to the states. It is at the federal level that their decision will have the most effect, particularly in deciding who is going to be appointed to replace the elder amongst them.

The Supremes in the end, will overturn their own decision, their own foray into politics, because it will ultimately decide their own philosophical makeup.

In short, the chickens have come home to roost.

Sign the CREW Petition. Clean Up the FEC.

The Federal Elections Commission is broken. Three commissioners, Republicans all, absolutely refuse to enforce our campaign laws, laws that are meant to keep our elections from turning into auctions, where government offices are sold to the highest bidder.

Six commissioners still serve on this supposed watchdog organization despite the fact that their terms have expired.

And now with Citizens United virtually guaranteeing an election cycle where money does all the talking we cannot afford to let the FEC remain a dysfunctional government entity.

So CREW and other public watchdog organizations have started a petition on the White House’s petition website. They need to have 25,000 signatures by February 10^th in order for the president to respond to the petition. At this writing they are 10 percent of the way there.

Go there and sign the petition. You will have to register at the White House website if you haven’t already. But most importantly, if you haven’t yet registered there why are you even reading this?

DeLay Lawyers Charge Trial Is Politically Motivated

And I thought that when you made an assertion in a court of law, you had to back it up with evidence.

Today, Dick DeGuerin, Tom DeLay’s lead attorney in his money laundering case, made a statement that the charges leveled against Tom DeLay were “politically motivated” on the part of retired District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

Gee, do you think?

After all, Tom DeLay’s crimes and misdemeanors were politically motivated to gain an unfair advantage and get a majority of state reps in the Texas House, and then use that to unfairly redraw congressional district boundaries a second time to increase the number of Republican congressmen from Texas.

But prosecutors deny that Ronnie Earle was politically motivated.

But the truth is, political motivation or no, a law was violated. Were Ronnie Earle not to prosecute Tom DeLay for money laundering, that could also be construed as politically motivated. When you don’t prosecute when a crime is committed, that is even more politically motivated than prosecuting when a crime has occurred.

Do you think?

But I can see where this is going. Here is what DeGuerin said about what Earle thought about DeLay’s crimes:

“Mr. Earle's philosophy is corporate money in elections is dangerous to democracy.”

Gee, do you think?

 

As we have seen in the past election, corporate money in elections in effect murders democracy. “Dangerous” is an understatement.

DeGuerin is obviously setting up for the “Citizens United Defense.” That is, what was very obviously thought to be dangerous to democracy in 2002 has evolved to being fair and balanced policy in giving a corporate entity the same rights as an individual and allow them to give campaign contributions to anyone. That is, ironically, if the Citizens United case is the law of the land now, should Tom DeLay’s case be appealed to the US Supreme Court as it now stands, any conviction would be overturned.

But I really don’t think it will come to that. DeGuerin is, I think, ready to make that case right now. Whether he is successful or not really depends on whether his jury agrees that ExxonMobil has as much right to give unlimited billions to Republican campaigns as they do.

If they had unlimited billions, that is.