FEC v. Ted Cruz For Senate Is Just The Latest In A Wretched Line Of Cases - TPM – Talking Points Memo

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This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. 

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1415256
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The Supreme Court is doing its level best to replace our clunky old democratic republic with an efficient plutocracy - government of, by, and for the wealthy.

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Refreshing to see Roberts revert back to his true soul and not have to pretend here. Money in politics is just too damn important, unlike abortion rights and healthcare.

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The Roberts Court’s reasoning on campaign finance issues represents the absurdity of making decisions on hyper-focused principle without any acknowledgement or even consideration of the real world effects.

It would be akin to saying, “Anti-trust laws that prevent the formation of industry monopolies are unconstitutional because any government interference in the free market to limit the acquisition of assets or property is wrong.” Even though we know that, without government providing guardrails to prevent monopolies, the strongest companies in each industry would eventually squeeze all others out of the market and raise prices to the detriment of the public.

But the Roberts court in that situation would surmise that one could not assume the inevitable outcome of monopolies in the absence of anti-trust laws, and that only the underlying principal of unhindered property rights matters. In the actual cases where Roberts and the Federalist Society cabal rule on campaign finance, they casually wave away the inevitable conclusion that large donors, corporate or wealthy individuals, could ever exert corrupting influences on the politicians they fund, to the detriment of the public.

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I can almost hear the clamor of heels and hooves as federal cases are filed to undo everything associated with good government over the past 50 years. Rights? Corruption? It’s as if six justices have never heard of the terms.

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Appreciate this overview, as I’ve pretty much stopped following campaign finance case law since Citizens United drove a hole through everything.

“We have denied attempts to reduce the amount of money in politics, to level electoral opportunities by equalizing candidate resources, and to limit the general influence a contributor may have over an elected official.”

“the Government has not shown that Section 304 [of BCRA] furthers a permissible anticorruption goal, rather than the impermissible objective of simply limiting the amount of money in politics.”

This is so fucked up yet he says it so matter of factly. To the point @opaquesquid made, it takes an extreme level of detachment from the real world to believe money in politics isn’t a significant problem. Or, I suppose, an intentional level of corruption.

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Glad the right wing stopped those “activist” judges.

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Check out the “Patel” case they just ruled on. With holier than thou Amy writing the opinion ( shock factor: Gorsuch objected ). In that one a 30 year legal resident of Georgia ( from India ) will be deported because of an erroneous check mark on a drivers license application. If that’s not good enough Amy ruled that NO FED COURT can review such a case so out he goes. He has 3 kids in Georgia that were born there.

Buckle up!!!

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At the risk of saying something which has been made more difficult:

We must expand our representation in Congress.

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The current Supreme Court is an arm of the GOP and its reactionary agenda. 5 or 6 “justices” consistently vote to advance every single thing the GOP wants. Whether it’s allowing “Christian” run businesses to discriminate and deny benefits to employees, openly endorse bribery, strip women of rights, encourage voter suppression, allow extreme gerrymandering, continue to weaponize the 2nd amendment to allow wide open abuse of weapons of war by criminals and terrorists, or prevent effective regulation of health and safety matters by OSHA, the Court is 100% a malign reactionary body destroying our liberty.

I hate to say this, but it will only get worse.

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Do corporations really need to be persons, my friends?

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Here is Roberts dismissing the notion that money in politics could be corrupting:

In the absence of direct evidence, the Government turns to a scholarly article, a poll, and statements by Members of Congress to show that the contributions used to repay candidate loans carry a heightened risk of at least the appearance of corruption. All of this evidence, however, concerns the sort of “corruption,” loosely conceived, that this Court has repeatedly explained is not legitimately regulated under the First Amendment. Nor is it equivalent to “legislative findings” that demonstrate the need to address a special problem.

All you have to do is put corruption in quotations, then state that the intention to limit political corruption is a violation of free speech. Again, he was able to arrive at this conclusion by following the logic path of “money = speech” (an absurd construction, from the start) and tie it to First Amendment.

Great to know that buying off a politician is now a Constitutional right.

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“Money into their own pockets”…

Trump is seeing dollar signs everywhere.
“Something Something corruption Something (thanks for the donation)”

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The high court has been corrupt beyond words since Bush v Gore and I’m tired of liberal legal analysts making excuses for them.

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At the heart of our problems is not fascism or racism, it’s greed and lust. Everything else is the result of that.

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I live in WI-7 where the rightist traitor Tom Tiffany is damned near running unopposed. Or he might as well be, for the total lack of help the party has been or will be. Meanwhile, I’m being hit up for donations from every long shot candidate from everywhere or other where I don’t live and never would.

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Does this decision also effectively destroy campaign contribution limits? Say I’m a poor candidate and I borrow a million dollars from Vlad Putin on a note of hand (no collateral because he likes me). Then I turn around and lend a million dollars to my campaign. After I’m elected, Putin graciously forgives the loan (because he still likes me). I now have tax liability from the forgiven loan, but my campaign also has a debt to me that it either pays off with contributions from Putin’s american-citizen “friends”, or else sticks me with an uncollectible debt balance that I can use to offset my imputed income.

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“FEC v. Ted Cruz For Senate Is Just The Latest In A Wretched Line Of Cases.”

Fixed.

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Others have said it before, but “You’re not getting wet, so the government is forbidden from handing out umbrellas, or even a poncho, when it’s raining.”

Justices Roberts and Scalito: “Après nous, le déluge.”

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Next up: “Even finely-tuned corruption will not be regulated by this Court.”

And: “Legislative findings the 6 of us do not agree with are not ‘findings’ at all.”

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