Supreme Court Repeats Naïve, Uninformed Errors of Citizens United

The Court's decision today in a pivotal campaign finance case has repeated its naïve, uninformed errors from its Citizens United decision.  The First Amendment is meant to protect essential freedoms, not as a weapon to destroy American democracy.  We look forward to the day when the Supreme Court majority deals with facts rather than imposing their own ideological views.

Read our full statement on the Court's decision in American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock here.

At issue in this case was a century old Montana law, the Corporate Practices Act (CPA), which prohibits corporations from making expenditures in campaign activities.  The CPA was a voter-adopted referendum that fought back against corporate interests and worked to end the corruption that unlimited funding caused in Montana’s government.

What should we do next? The first step in overcoming the effects of this decision and Citizens United is for Congress to pass the DISCLOSE Act, which would restore transparency to U.S. elections by requiring complete disclosure of spending on big-money advertising in candidate elections. 

The voters deserve to know where all the big-money is coming from before they make their decisions in the voting booth. League members will continue this fight in Congress, with state legislatures, with the executive branch and, where appropriate, the courts.  Voters will not stand by and let our political system be corrupted by unlimited secret money.