I hope we shall take warning from the example [of England] and crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws our country.
– Thomas Jefferson
You and I don’t have the same access to or influence over my Representative, Senators, or President that organized interests do and we never will. Beyond the fact that they have much more ability to give money and influence voters, the mere fact that they’re organized makes it easier for them to claim to represent large numbers. The laws overturned today were never going to substantively change any of that.
– James Joyner
alright start off with the idea that i and goldman sachs both have free speech. now throw in the premise that this right varies with, ranges over, or actually is money. then my right is shockingly negligible and circumscribed. we might say that goldman sachs has ten million times as much right to free speech as i have, approximately. in part, i admit, this is simply a statement of antecedent fact rather than some sort of normative program. but these things cannot all be true at once: a corporation is a man. all men are created equal, that is, they have certain inalienable rights. money is speech.
– Crispin Sartwell
if we look at it from a practical viewpoint, how much has the law been doing anyway ? Do we really think that the law prior to the ruling really stopped the AFL-CIO from doing ads and making contributions on behalf of candidates they liked ? Did it really do much to keep General Mills from doing the same thing on issues they cared about ? Of course not. These kinds of laws have always been a wink and a nod kind of thing
–Patrick Edaburn
This is the legal profession. This is politics. This is the distribution of power. This is life in America. A series of errors and oversights that empowered the few, and now everyone is scrambling to get their piece of the pie.
– la Rana