We continuously read about how polarized our society is and that’s because we are about as polarized as we have been any time in the past hundred years. However, there is one issue that seems to unite us and that is the desire to take our democracy back from the big money people and special interests who exist on both sides of the political divide. Most people argue that if we could reduce the influence of the super wealthy and eliminate the negative political ads, the lies and the half-truths, we could reclaim our country and our cherished democracy. For most Americans, that is a fight worth fighting.
The exciting thing is that we may be on the road to seeing that actually happen. If the next U.S. Supreme Court justice sides with the four liberal/moderate justices on the court on just two critical issues, we could begin to see a dramatic change in our entire system. The two issues that need to be reversed are: “money is speech,” because money is not speech, and “corporations are people,” because obviously corporations are not people.
If these two very questionable rulings are overturned—and the vast majority of Americans, according to reliable polling, want to see these two rulings changed—various proposed laws would become constitutional. Right now, for example, these Supreme Court rulings make it unconstitutional to put any kind of campaign spending limits on “independent expenditures” made by special interest groups. This is why you have what seems like unlimited money being spent on primarily negative and false ads by outside groups, which don’t even have to disclose who is paying for all these sleazy ads.
If and when these rulings are overturned, and they eventually will be changed, it will then enable state legislatures and the U.S. Congress to pass campaign finance laws restricting various “corrupt” practices. New laws could take the hundreds of millions and in some cases billions of dollars out of our election process without these new laws being found unconstitutional as they would be today. If the big money is out of elections, then our elected officials will have to do more retail campaigning again and actually talk to their constituents. They could not simply rely on expensive attack ads by outside dark money to destroy their opponent’s reputation in order to win their elections. Also, we could again have campaigns funded by average citizens so $50 contributions will actually mean something again.
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We optimistically wait to see a new Supreme Court justice confirmed.
