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Supreme Court Strikes Down Corp.Campaign Spending Bans: (Ruling Embedded Below)
The Lid/SCOTUS/WAPO ^ | 1/21/10 | The Lid

Posted on 01/21/2010 8:39:30 AM PST by Shellybenoit

Corporations have re-acquired their First Amendment rights to free speech.The Supreme Court ruled this morning that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose political candidates, and struck down a big part of the McCain-Feingold limits on business spending on federal campaigns. Amazingly the reason for the ruling had nothing to do with a campaign ad, but it was a movie critical of Hilary Clinton, that accused her of breaking campaign law.

By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said companies can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states. (note the full ruling of the SCOTUS is embedded below)

(Excerpt) Read more at yidwithlid.blogspot.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: campaignspending; corpdonations; freespeech; scotus

1 posted on 01/21/2010 8:39:31 AM PST by Shellybenoit
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To: Shellybenoit

That law didn’t stop Big Pharma and Big Insurance and AARP and unions from spending millions and millions pushing ObamaCare.


2 posted on 01/21/2010 8:42:49 AM PST by GeronL (http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com)
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To: Shellybenoit

Wasn’t this law a reaction to conservative money generating power? Rolling it back is a good thing. It will also free up unions to extort money from its members also.

The left is skeeeeerd!

Stay Frosty!
Semper Fidelis


3 posted on 01/21/2010 8:47:36 AM PST by petro45acp (Free Republic, the only thing working on this sorry Bagram interweb thingy! Thanks Free Republic!)
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To: Shellybenoit

This is great news. I don’t have time to get into why it is such great news, but it is.


4 posted on 01/21/2010 9:14:39 AM PST by your local physicist (Never give in to the dark side of the Force unless you are double-teamed while playing nose tackle.)
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To: GeronL

The push for HCR wasn’t a campaign.
People and companies can push ISSUES, but the restrictions were placed on elections and ads for specific candidates, IIRC.


5 posted on 01/21/2010 9:31:08 AM PST by SJSAMPLE
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To: Shellybenoit

Lots of new revenue for struggling media outlets (could be both good and bad).


6 posted on 01/21/2010 9:36:53 AM PST by Will88
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To: Shellybenoit
So, corporations have more freedom of speech than the average Joe? Considering they have much more money than a normal person does, they could buy up TV time for anyone they happen to like.

Just think of all that freedom of speech those banksters we bailed out have.

Al Qaeda could incorporate here in the US, under a fake name no doubt, and buy up any politician they want.

This is seriously crazy. Since when are corporations people?

7 posted on 01/21/2010 9:56:24 AM PST by whyme2
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