Following up Friday’s posting about the public campaign financing case in the US Supreme Court, here are stories about Monday’s arguments written by the Associated Press, Washington Post and New York Times. The same five justices who twisted common sense and judicial precedent to open the door for massive corporate spending in elections were ready to gut the matching funds provision that protects publicly financed candidates from exactly that kind of excessive spending.
1-888-OUR-VOTE|info@democracy-nc.org
To me, today’s Republican Party should not be called conservative, but the real opposite of progressive — regressive. It has been the lackey of Big Money for some time; now it’s just being open about it, tripping all over itself trying to transform our democracy into its masters’ dream of a land of serfdom and lords. And now even the perverse Supreme Court is refusing to recognize the importance of the simple and obvious truth that big money does double duty by corrupting ideals, but by itself serving as the instrument of influence whose uneven application corrupts our elections.
If things really have to get worse before they can get better, then such coarsely revealing acts as removing labor murals from Labor Department walls in Maine, and all the rest of it, are doing the good and vital job of waking the masses to their jeopardy.
I just hope the patient survives the cure. And let’s all pray for the good health of Justice Kagan, who said ” I think the purpose of this law is to prevent corruption.”
Leo,
Please don’t make the mistake in thinking that the Republicans are the only party beholding to big money. The money raked in by the Democrats has been equally shameful. In particular the money collected from public worker unions feeds Democrats who continue to raise benefits without regard or plan to pay those benefits. You could honestly say the Democrats don’t have the guts to face these problems. At least the Republicans are facing up to these problems and trying to solve them. You don’t think the unions are corrupt? Any conversation on the corruption of money needs to include the unions and not be directed only at business. If regressive means living within one’s means, then go ahead and call me regressive, but I will continue to refer to myself as conservative.