Sustained!: FORECAST: Cloudy Future due to Supreme Court

Monday, January 25, 2010

FORECAST: Cloudy Future due to Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court gave corporations free rein to spend without limits in political races in a precedent-shattering 5-4 ruling. With unfettered restraints on businesses' ability to fund and influence political races, our republic might appear to be for sale. This single change, however, may not have single-handedly threatened our nations decision making. Corporations have been influencing the political process in America for over a century. But the United States Supreme Court's storming to overturn decades of precedent is an action that casts a dark cloud over our nations future.

Big business has cried foul about being excluded from this portion of the political process for 103 years, since Republican President Theodore Roosevelt pressured Congress to forbid corporations, railroads and banks from donating to federal races. But even though they cry about being excluded, they have shown mastery at hiding their footprints, even as they walk across the political landscape spending millions to influence political races by contributions to third-party groups. The Supreme Court's decision may actually make corporate contributions more transparent that they have been in the past. The Court has consistently upheld requirements that campaign contributions be disclosed. A candidate with certain corporate attachments to the purse strings will have to answer at the polls.

More disturbing is that the Supreme Court is not afraid to directly challenge the will of congress and the president. Most politicians, Democrat and Republican, uniformly agree that campaign finance laws should be tougher. Yet the Court disregarded precedent and struck down existing laws; ruling that they were unconstitutional. Such judicial activism may led the high Court into other areas which are vulnerable to constitutional attack. For example, the Court could visit the voting rights act (a law that conservative members of the court have criticized) and rule that its restrictions are unconstitutional. The Court could be of the opinion that other courts before them got it wrong. They could undue decades of judicial decisions, many of which shaped our nation. The future is cloudy indeed.

5 comments:

AnonymousJan 28, 2010 04:25 PM
Magna Carta is the Supreme Law of the Land. It is written that we should obey the laws of the land but most of us don't have a clue about the establishing of these laws or the fundamentals of how the laws were established from the beginning. We should most certainly understand these laws because it also says that we are bound by the same laws we are committed to ascertain. It is not profitable for me to obey a law that I do not understand against sound doctrine that I completely understand unless I know it's beginning from its end. Magna Carta was granted by King John of England on June 15, 1215 in ML lit. and was written in 1787 according to our constitution. The Anti-Federalist was the English goverment who set up this act because a economic theory regulated trade between Britian and the conlonies that benefited the Mother Land according to their thesis called mercantilsm. However Britian officially realized American Idenpendence and the U.S. constitution ended the American revolution. Britian then was forced to collect money straight from the colonist through a system called taxation to pay off their war debts to a country established to vacate taxes. One complaint was that their was lack of representation in the English Parliament which was a doctrine that limited the Kings power. The revolutionaries considered the challenge to obtain fullness of abilitys without further restraits unalienable rights. A right to life, liberty and happiness. May we all share those same dreams for our own country men from the establishing of the laws in our own land from the very beginning.
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AnonymousJan 30, 2010 10:33 PM
Its quite obvious that, instead of actually reading the SCOTUS' opinion, you merely repeated the Democrat talking points as spewed out by the media. There is not enough space to educate you here, but you might learn something about First Amendment law if you bothered to read the opinion and quit parroting the hysterical overreaction of the Democratic party.
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Eric J. DavisJan 31, 2010 05:32 AM
The Dems are not saying "This single change, however, may not have single-handedly threatened our nations decision making. Corporations have been influencing the political process in America for over a century. But the United States Supreme Court's storming to overturn decades of precedent is an action that casts a dark cloud over our nations future."

I read the opinion and I am not saying that the republic is now for sale like some democrats. The point of my post is that we should be concerned about the Supreme Court indicating that they will ignore precedent. Thanks for your post.
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AnonymousFeb 1, 2010 01:20 PM
It baffles me that anyone could insult or belittle the knowledge of a man with as many achievements as Attorney Davis. It is trouble some to me because Mark Twain once quoted that one that belittles anothers abitions is a very little person with in themselves. That in return lets me know that a person with insulting lips is usually the one parroting because they don't have a big enouph brain to consider optimism on the account of their little pest. It is a good thing that Attorney Davis has built his career on defending and building lives rather than taring down lives to promote his own ego because other wise he would have no place value to me. He however is more acheived than myself and can look over little people and still give them the benefit of the doubt. I agree that there as laws that were established over a century ago during a Era that was not profitable to the equation of all mens lives that need to be changed. I also agree that constuctive critism can be positive but destructive motivation to build a higher esteem for one self against another mans knowledge is just pitiful.
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AnonymousFeb 3, 2010 10:31 AM
"It was naive of the 19th century optimist to expect paradise from technology-and it is equally naive of the 20th century pessimist to make technology the scape goat for such old short comings as man's blindness, cruelty, immaturity, greed and sinful pride." Quote by Peter F. Drucker displayed in the opinion section of the courier occupied with a cartoon of a elephant and a donkey driving through a puddle of water with the elephant quoting to the donkey "This is another fine mess you've gotten us into." Well "Dems to breaks" is what I've always heard. The Republicans tax dollars just seem to keep making assumtions out of you and me but don't take it from me, go ask the donkey. It is written that if God can speak through the donkey he can use anybody.
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