President Obama comes out swinging after Supreme Court decision striking down campaign finance laws.
Using unusually harsh language, President Barack Obama today denounced a much-anticipated U.S. Supreme Court decision published this morning that peels back longstanding restrictions on political speech by corporations and labor unions.
“With it’s ruling today,” Obama said in a prepared statement released by the White House, “the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”
The court was sharply divided in its 5-4 decision this morning, with a 90-page dissent from Justice John Paul Stevens accompanying the 57-page majority opinion authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy.
“The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach,” Kennedy wrote in his opinion. Then quoting Justice Antonin Scalia from an earlier dissent, he wrote: “The Government has ‘muffled the voices that best represent the most significant segments of the economy.’”
In his dissent, Justice Stevens accused the court majority of vastly overreaching in a way that would damage the health of American democracy.
“The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation,” he wrote. “The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution [the Supreme Court].”
In its coverage on-line this morning, the New York Times characterized the ruling this way:
“The decision’s most immediate effect is to permit corporate and union-sponsored political ads to run right up to the moment of an election, and to allow them to call for the election or defeat of a candidate. In presidential elections and in highly congressional contests, that could mean a dramatic increase in television advertising competing for time and public attention.
“In the long term, corporations, their industry associations and labor unions are free to tap their treasuries to assist candidates, although spending may not be coordinated with the candidates.
“‘It’s going to be the Wild Wild West,’ said Ben Ginsberg, a Republican attorney who has represented several GOP presidential campaigns. “If corporations and unions can give unlimited amounts…it means that the public debate is significantly changed with a lot more voices and it means that the loudest voices are going to be corporations and unions.’”
That was the theme Obama picked up on in his remarks.
“This ruling gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington–while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to supported their preferred candidates,” he said. “That’s why I am instructing my Administration to get to work immediately with Congress on this issue. We are going to talk with bipartisan Congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing less.”
–CFJ
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