It’s election season and the political ads are overwhelming. You can’t escape the mud-slinging, lies and character assassinations regardless how much you punch the buttons. In any political season, the negative advertising explodes. But for this mid-term election, its worse than ever. For that you can thank the Supreme Court, and its ruling called Citizens United, which permitted unlimited spending by special interests, in secret, to launch ad campaigns that influence elections.
The Citizens United ruling
The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects corporate funding of independent politician advertising which can’t be limited making the Citizens United ruling something that will change politics. Citizens United were probably pretty glad to hear the Supreme Court ruled in their favor which stopped the McCain-Feingold Act. That is the same Act as the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. The provision barred all corporations, both for-profit and non-profit, plus unions from running broadcast, cable, or satellite marketing that mentioned a candidate within 60 days of a general election or thirty days of a primary.
What Citizens United changed
The midterm election could be here in a week or two. Citizens United has made a really big impact on what will happen. All states are bound to determine the special interest group ads. They will all be deceptive attacks to change things. Voters don’t know who’s behind these ads or who’s paying for them. The new York Times explains that even foreign companies are in on it. They want a candidate to vote for them. The Center for American progress reports that all the companies in Bahrain, India and Egypt running ads for Republicans within the midterm races have to pay “dues” to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
What Citizens United should prepare for
The Los Angeles Times tells us what the real problem is with Citizens United. The federal government has been trying hard to stop abuses in the country for the last two years, reports the Times. The financial industry and insurance companies have been the ones abused. Tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas have been rolled back. We are also enforcing clean air and water rules. Citizens United will help Republicans out a bit. They planned on stopping, in November, the unregulated, out of control political spending. Then the lobbyists will be able to write laws again. According to the Times, this is Congress’ problem. They need to fix the problem too. Even if they do, it will be too late to stem the damage already done in this election.
Information from
New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/10/06/opinion/06wed1.html?scp=2 and amp;sq=us chamber and amp;st=cse
Los Angeles Times
latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/09/weekly-remarks-greg-walden-stop-tax-hikes-obama.html
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