A bitterly divided Supreme Court vastly increased the power of big business and unions to influence government decisions Thursday by freeing them to spend their millions directly to sway elections for president and Congress. The ruling reversed a century-long trend to limit the political muscle of corporations, organized labor and their massive war chests. It also recast the political landscape just as crucial midterm election campaigns are getting under way.
In its sweeping 5-4 ruling, the court set the stage for a wave of likely repercussions – from new pressures on lawmakers to heed special interest demands to increasingly boisterous campaigns featuring highly charged ads that drown out candidate voices. The election-season blizzard of ads on Americans TV screens is bound to increase.
While the full consequences of the decision were hard to measure, politicians made clear whom they believed benefited. Democrats, led by President Barack Obama, condemned the decision while Republicans cheered it. Still, more labor and corporate money in the political system could dilute the role of both political parties. And the decision seeded the ground for further challenges to an already weakened system of campaign finance regulations.
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2 comments:
Man, I hate it when people confuse "rouge" and "rogue". Shows they're not paying attention.
I'd believe the SC went "rogue", but not "rouge" unless it's a really obscure Communism joke I'm just not getting.
Thanks for pointing out our typo. The latest version of Blogger does not have a spell check function. Really makes the job of catching typos difficult.
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