Just before the midterm congressional elections, the 20-year old Supreme Court ruling that barred corporations from spending freely in elections was broken.
Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia all voted in favor of the ruling that would allow corporations to spend freely in elections. Justices Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor made up the minority voting against the act.
By a 5-4 vote, the court majority justified its decision by saying that the previous laws had been a violation of basic First Amendment rights, their argument being that the government cannot regulate political speech.
“When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought,” Kennedy said. “This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”
The opposing four justices saw the ruling differently. They believed the act would weaken elections in the future.
“The court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation,” Stevens said.
According to the New York Times, the new ruling overruled two previous precedents. The first is “Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Congress, a 1990 decision that upheld restrictions on corporate spending to support or oppose political candidates, and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, a 2003 decision that upheld the part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that restricted campaign spending by corporations and unions.”
“The court essentially said that corporations are legal persons for purposes of the First Amendment,” Saint Louis University Assistant Professor of Political Science and Law Matthew Hall said. “Just as they are in most legal contexts, and as such the government may not limit the money they spend on ‘electioneering’.”
Although the new ruling will greatly reshape the way elections are held, there are still restrictions on the corporate financers.
“Corporations will now be able to spend money from their general treasury on ads that influence elections,” Hall said. “But they still can’t donate directly to the candidate.”
Another law still intact requires nonprofit groups that support a political candidate to disclose certain financial backing.
The new ruling may not only affect candidates in current elections, it may also affect candidates already in office.
“Corporations not only can spend more to encourage certain policy positions,” Professor of Political Science at Washington University Bill Lowry said. “They can also threaten to spend more if some elected official takes a position that they don’t like. This could be intimidating to some office-holders.”
Many Americans are wondering how this ruling will affect the power of unions and corporations in the future. Although the ruling seems in favor of conservative businesses, it could also be in favor of liberal unions.
“Supporters of the ruling say it will lead to fuller and freer electoral campaigns,” Hall said. “Opponents say it will allow corporations to buy elections and probably give an advantage to Republican candidates. Although businesses tend to be heavily Republican, unions tend to be heavily Democratic, and the unions may now spend directly on elections as well.  So I think the effect will balance out to some degree.”
The new ruling could impact candidates’ campaigns in ways visible to the voter. With more money from the corporations also comes more money to spend on advertisements.
“If the normal American citizen thought that they were already getting an overload of ads during elections, wait until the next campaign,” Lowry said. “In addition, the potential for greater spending by corporations could impact a wide range of public policies, although this remains to be seen.”
In a speech made by President Obama, he voiced his concerns of the new ruling and how it might demean the role of the average citizen in elections.
“The Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics,” Obama said in a statement. “It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”
The upcoming midterm congressional elections will feel the effects of the new ruling most strongly.
The Supreme Court ruling shocked many people, and it is certain that the way elections will be conducted has been changed dramatically. The court ruling remained judicial throughout the case, though, and it is obvious that the court wanted a change.
“Whatever one thinks about the implications of the court’s ruling in this case, it would be hard for someone to argue that this Supreme Court did not pursue judicial activism in this case,” Lowry said. “The case itself could have resulted in a much more narrow ruling that did not produce significant disagreements with past decisions and precedents, but this court obviously wanted to make a strong statement.”