Campaign Finance Reform

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The Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United v. FEC a new president has been made - out of whole cloth.! The majority is violating the Supreme Court's own judicial principles in making the disposition they handed down. They are ruling on a question that was not even brought before the court (that's not to mention the other principles they have violated). In my mind this can not have the force of law behind it; this is an edict and not a ruling by the court. It is as if they have determined that they have the right to legislate, which is also a violation of the Constitution (checks and balances). This is such a vagrant assault on the rule of law, that it boarders on treason without even considering to what foreign enemies may be able to do if this ruling holds.

This country was founded on the rule of law. The Constitution embodies the principles that shall govern us all and describes the functions of each branch of government; it is the highest law in this country. Now, the Constitution only sites two forms of treason (it was purposely made very narrow); giving aid and comfort to an enemy and levying war against the United States. I have to stretch the definition of treason to make this case, but only a fraction beyond what the text of the Constitution says…

• Abandoning the Supreme Court's judicial principles is outside the rule of law
• Governing outside the rule of law (and its checks and balances) is an attack on the rule of law itself
• An attack on the rule of law is an attack on the US Constitution
• An attack on the US Constitution is an act of treason

The Constitution does not dictate the judicial principles the Supreme Court shall follow, nor does it prescribe regular order for either house of Congress (regular order is our equivalent of parliamentary procedures). That was left up to the 1st Congress and the Supreme Court and of course both have been changed somewhat over time. Justice Stevens makes a number of points about judicial principles in his dissent and explains why operating outside of the bounds of judicial principle is so dangerous. In my opinion it is obvious that operating outside the bounds of judicial principle is to operate outside the rule of law and is in violation of the US Constitution. Primarily due to our common law tradition and especially the principle of stare decisis.

I think the definition of treason can be expanded. When the Constitution was written it was not possible for a foreign government to destroy our financial system by, let’s say, writing a malicious virus and inserting it into server within the financial system and thereby deleting everything on all the servers throughout the system. Such an attack was impossible back in 1776 as there was no financial system akin to what we have today and no computers either. As time goes on and new technologies are developed, we have expanded the scope of the law to allow justice to be applied as needed.

We face a very serious threat today that was not present in 1776 in the form of corporate dominance. The Founders were aware of the tyranny of corporations; they had to deal with two very tyrannical ones. The East India Company, which was an extension of the King himself (founded by Queen Elizabeth) and the Bank of England, which was more or less in partnership with the Crown. Both corporations sought to subjugate the citizens of the American Colonies in much the same way the Crown could (of course the Colonists were legally Subjects of the Crown). The Colonists had representation in Parliament, however, and British Common Law recognized the rights of English Subjects. Corporations have no social contract with the public and don’t recognize the rights of individuals. Many corporations today have revenues that exceed those of many countryies’ GDPs. Exxon Mobil alone had revenues in the last quarter of 2008 of $116.64 billion, which is almost equal to the GDP of Peru for an entire year.

Corporate subjugation is a real and present danger to the people of the United States and if you ask yourself who benefits from such outrageous laws (and this ruling is a new law), you’ll find that the answer is always corporations. The continuous and unrelenting assault on the rule of law by the right wing purposely and exclusively targets the middle class. This is an act of class warfare and we have now been made, by decree, second class citizens by virtue of the fact that we don’t have the resources to speak as loudly as the corporations.

-- Rick Emmet - 2010-01-29

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Timeline

• Jan 2010 - The Supreme Court rules that corporations can make unlimited contributions to campaigns.

Recent Articles and Media: (Add | All Media)

This is the most recently published 20 articles, most recent first.

• (M1184) 2011-10-28 Suggested Goals of the Occupy Movement -- Raymond Lutz, Citizens Oversight,
• (M1178) 2011-10-03 Citizens Join Occupy Wall Street at Civic Center Plaza, San Diego -- Occupy San Diego, Occupy San Diego,
• (M943) 2010-02-23 Obituary: HAMANN, ROBERT DALE -- , Union Tribune, Hamann was a strong supporter of ultra-right wing politics in East County
• (M941) 2010-01-21 Citizens United vs. FEC Decision -- , Supreme Court, Allows unlimited corporate contributions
• (M966) 2010-01-21 Supreme Court Decision -- CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION -- , Supreme Court,
• (M913) 2010-01-08 EDITORIAL: Voters need full picture of donors -- Editor, Fresno Bee, Features Joel Anderson
• (M910) 2010-01-02 Politicians rely on county parties to funnel contributions, avoid campaign limits -- Chase Davis, California Watch, Features Joel Anderson
• (M924) 2009-12-07 Loopholes, Tricks and End Runs: Evasions of Campaign Finance Laws, and a Model Law to Block Them -- Molly Milligan, Center For Governmental Studies, Features Joel Anderson

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