Supreme Gang of Five Remains Bent On Destroying Fair Elections In America

By James Donahue

After watching the constant salvo of attack ads generated by a string of Super PAC organizations turn the Republican presidential campaign into the worst season of mud-slinging anyone can remember, the U.S. Supreme Court “gang of five” appears to be sticking to its guns concerning the 2010 ruling that created this quandary.

The 5-4 Citizens United decision that proclaimed that “corporations are people,” thus giving big money interests the freedom to secretly finance political campaigns, has turned the GOP campaign into a national circus. Billions of dollars from big money interests are buying so much television advertising space there is hardly room for regular programming in states holding primary elections and caucuses. Many of us have become so weary of the ad invasion that we have switched to alternative forms of evening entertainment. How grateful we are for On Demand, DVD and Netflix.

The attack ads have been so malicious that no one should wonder why the popularity of the candidates in the field has wavered radically like a roller coaster. It is possible that the attacks are leaving people confused. More likely the whole thing has been going on so long, and there has been so much propaganda thrown in our faces, that Americans are getting sick and tired of the campaign and everybody involved.

The concept of corporate personhood has caused a reaction in towns and state government bodies all across the land. In January, Vermont legislators announced a decision to launch a campaign for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court decision. Last year voters in Madison, Wisconsin overwhelmingly approved a city referendum calling for an amendment to the US Constitution. And in Los Angeles, the City Council voted to support state and federal legislation to end the concept of corporate personhood.

In spite of the expressed opposition to the high court ruling, those same five members of that court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sam Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have clearly shown no remorse. In a recent 5-4 ruling, these same judges blocked a Montana Supreme Court decision that upheld a 100-year-old state ban on corporate political spending.

The Montana Supreme Court held that the state’s history of corrupting corporate influence in politics distinguished the state’s Corrupt Practices Act from the federal McCain-Feingold Act that the high court struck down in the case brought by Citizens United in 2010.

The five-judge panel, however, found that corporate independent spending in elections “does not corrupt, or even appear to corrupt, the political process.”

By putting the Montana issue on hold, the Supreme Court has set the stage for a possible repeat of the 2010 Citizens United debacle. If nothing else, the action has left the State of Montana twisting slowly in the wind over corporate political spending.

The judges are either blind or they are lying like a rug.

We don’t share much hope for any attempt to get the “Supreme Gang of Five” to bend on this very bad and unpopular ruling. These extreme conservative judges have cleverly set the nation up for a complete takeover by the crooks in the ivory towers with their hands on the money. They are buying every candidate that has any chance to get elected to office.

The attack advertising hasn’t fooled a lot of the voters. Our concern is that enough people will be left so confused that it will be impossible to ever have a fair and balanced election in America until this mess gets fixed.