editorial: Super PACs sway, discourage voters
Poststar.com
If you support the Supreme Courts Citizens United decision of 2010, which allows unlimited political campaign spending by corporations and unions, then you must tolerate negative campaign ads like the ones that recently attacked Republican congressional candidate Matt Doheny.
The ads that attacked Doheny, dredging up negative information publicized years ago, and rehashed several times since, were paid for by American Crossroads. That group, founded by Karl Rove, is one of the political action committees, known as Super PACs, that sprang up after the Supreme Courts decision for the purposes of steering politicians, influencing legislation and winning elections.
The Supreme Court overruled its own recent precedents and a long history of legal decisions in Citizens United, as the five-member majority opened the political process to manipulation and control by the wealthiest Americans.
Earlier rulings had upheld a distinction between individuals on one hand and corporations and unions on the other. But Citizens United destroyed that distinction by focusing on money and declaring spending for political purposes is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment.
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