{"id":21,"date":"2010-01-30T16:24:51","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T16:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cykman.wordpress.com\/?p=21"},"modified":"2010-01-30T16:24:51","modified_gmt":"2010-01-30T16:24:51","slug":"supreme-court-opens-a-can-of-unintended-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/politics.cykman.com\/?p=21","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Opens A Can of Unintended Consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Common wisdom surrounding the recent supreme court decision striking down federal campaign limits on corporations and unions is that it was a win for conservatives and Republicans and another blow to liberals and the Democratic Party.\u00a0\u00a0 The case harkens back to an earlier decision, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad<\/strong>, a supreme court decision in 1886 dealing with taxation of railroad properties by the State of California, in which the court found that corporations are entitled to the same protection as individuals under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.\u00a0 Now the court has extended First Amendment rights to corporations and unions, including potentially, multinational corporations controlled by non-US citizens and foreign governments.\u00a0 How that all sorts out is likely to be chaotic.\u00a0 You can read the complex Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission<\/strong> decision yourself at http:\/\/www.supremecourtus.gov\/opinions\/09pdf\/08-205.pdf<\/p>\n

The 5-4 decision by the conservative members of the court suggests an overtly political decision, however, in the end, there are many unanswered questions.\u00a0\u00a0 Businesses will still likely support candidates of both parties to secure their interests.\u00a0 And there are still a limited number of communications media outlets.\u00a0 Major segments of our media today are already under the control of right wing ideologues – will they have to move over and share the airwaves and the internet with Exxon-Mobil, Walmart, and General Electric?\u00a0 I think I’d rather hear from the likes of Exxon-Mobil, Walmart, and General Electric than Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.\u00a0\u00a0 Two unanswered questions that come to mind:\u00a0 What say will shareholders have in aligning corporate contributions with corporate interests?\u00a0 Will unions find ways to expand their influence and membership now that the limits have been taken off them as well.<\/p>\n

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Common wisdom surrounding the recent supreme court decision striking down federal campaign limits on corporations and unions is that it was a win for conservatives and Republicans and another blow to liberals and the Democratic Party.\u00a0\u00a0 The case harkens back … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[135],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/politics.cykman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/politics.cykman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/politics.cykman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/politics.cykman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/politics.cykman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/politics.cykman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/politics.cykman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/politics.cykman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/politics.cykman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}