Monday, June 30, 2008

Davis Ruling Reaction.

From Tony Mauro:
The Court now has a solid majority of five justices — Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito Jr. and Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. — who are hostile to campaign-finance reform on First Amendment grounds, says University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone. The shift is attributable to the arrival in 2006 of Alito — who authored the Davis ruling — as the successor to Sandra Day O’Connor, who generally supported campaign-finance laws.

Rick Hasen, election-law expert Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, says the rationale of the Davis opinion puts in jeopardy spending limits on corporations and unions and may even threaten public financing of campaigns.
I am not sure that Hasen's concerns are founded.

The law's prohibition against the use of corporate funds to support candidates is pretty solid and long standing. I don't think the prohibitions against corporate/union money are going anywhere, Davis notwithstanding.

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