Legal Commentary

Will Foreign Corporate Money Flood Our Elections?

By Big Tent Democrat

Kevin Drum and Mark Kleiman wonder:

Mark Kleiman nominates another unforeseen beneficiary: ["]One aspect of the ruling that hasn’t gathered much attention: as far as I can tell, the analysis doesn’t distinguish between domestic and foreign corporations....So the ruling allows Hugo Chavez to spend as much money as he wants to helping and harming American politicians. If the Russian, Saudi, and Chinese governments don’t currently have appropriate vehicles for doing so, you can count on it: they soon will. [. . .] Buying influence on the American government has to be the highest-leverage activity ever invented, and Justice Kennedy and his four accomplices just invited every oligarch and tyrant in the world to play. This is not just a threat to democracy; it’s a threat to sovereignty."

Not sure if Kleiman is right, but it is a wonderfully appealing line of populist attack available to the Democrats on Citizens United. Arlen Specter is proposing a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United. Part of the sell can be that it will keep foreign money out of our elections.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 22, 2010 (boomark / email).