"The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision earlier this year overturned decades of precedent and enabled corporations and labor unions to make unlimited expenditures -- in many cases funded by undisclosed contributions -- to advocate the election or defeat of specific candidates. While these expenditures cannot be coordinated with political campaigns, they can be used in both federal election campaigns as well as campaigns for state judgeships in the nearly 40 states where judicial elections are held. Congressional efforts earlier this year to mandate full disclosure of these 'independent expenditures' and the contributions funding them narrowly failed in Congress.
My conservative friends who welcomed the Citizens United ruling point to the Supreme Court's majority decision that appears to equate the rights of corporations in our democracy with the rights of individual citizens. If you follow this logic, the marketplace for political candidates is no different than the marketplace for any other commodity: both marketplaces should be free from regulatory constraints, and competition should enable the best candidate, or commodity, to flourish."
Huffington Post Opinion: Campaign Finance Disclosure Sunlight Is Needed
Charles Kolb: Huffington Post:
