Beginning in 2010, the conservatives on the US Supreme Court struck down over 100 years of campaign finance laws, ignoring overriding public support for these bi-partisan statutes, and declared the following:

Corporations have a 1st Amendment right to spend as much money as they want in order to support or to oppose candidates for public office
Likewise, there also can be no limit on the amount of money that an individual can spend on political campaigns
The identities of these contributions need not be made public, even if they are from foreigners or foreign corporations

Before the Court's decisions came down, political debate in this country already was expressing concern over the increasing influence that special interests had in the political process. Conservative Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and liberal Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) were leading advocates for taking big money out of politics and even had passed some meaningful legislation, although many people felt they had not gone far enough.

The practical effect of these Court decisions is to put special interest influence on our elections and our elected officials on steroids. One hidden individual or one unnamed corporation or one special interest group working in secret can now drop unlimited money into an election and blow any candidate or ballot initiative out of the water. Particularly if their campaign ads and literature are misleading, distorting, or out and out lies, and the other side cannot raise enough money to respond.

And it isn't just "bribery" that these decisions have legitimized. Another technique used by the big money boys might be characterized as political blackmail. This has been a favorite on the extreme right side of the political spectrum in recent years, where just the threat of funding a primary opponent can force an incumbent official to forsake compromise or not support what is best for the local community or for the county. As a result, we've seen far too many Republicans vote in the interests of one single individual, corporation, or interest group in order to save their political skin.

Here are a few examples of how these court decisions have affected and are affecting political races in recent years. While the far right has taken the most advantage of the Court's rulings, and the following examples reflect this, we would take the same position if the shoe was on the other foot. Politicians should be beholden to the people, not to a small number of rich activists.

Richard Lugar was a conservative Senator from Indiana, well-respected on both sides of the aisle. He was a practical politician who wasn't afraid to compromise in order to move the country forward. That made him a marked man in the eyes of the far right money machine, though. Even though he would have been a shoe-in to win re-election in 2012, a handful of special interests funded Lugar's primary opponent, a Tea Party favorite who defeated Lugar in that primary fight.

Too many incumbent Republicans got the message: don't do what's right or you risk big money from a few ultra-conservative sources going against you.

(Norquist image from salon.com)

Grover Norquist is a far-right political operative who is so wedded to the idea of lower taxes for the rich, that he has coerced virtually every Republican running for Congress to sign a pledge opposing any tax increase, even in cases where it is obvious that the country would benefit from such legislation. How did he manage that? His organization is funded by large contributions from wealthy donors and he has and will use that money to oppose any Republican who won't sign his pledge. As Democrats, we pledge our allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. We do not take a pledge to lower taxes for the rich at the expense of everyone else.

Western Kansans generally are a conservative-voting group, but they like their wind farms for producing energy. Unfortunately for them, the billionaire Koch brothers are in the oil and gas business and don't seem to like wind farms one bit. Our people in Kansas tell us that the Koch's front group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), is lining up candidates to take AFP money in order to try and eliminate these wind farms.

Many Americans aren't conversant on a lot of the issues being decided by the Supreme Court, but they know democracy, they know fairness, and they know when the system is being rigged against them. You and 100 of your neighbors could give $20 apiece to a candidate, but if Grover Norquist or an activist billionaire like one of the Koch brothers or, on the left, a George Soros doesn't like your position and is willing to give $1million to the other guy, who do you think is going to have the most influence on your elected officials? Unfortunately, it's not going to be you.

That's why polling consistently shows 80% of the public opposes these misguided decisions by the Court. {For example, one NYT/CBS poll we saw reported that 85% of participants said the current campaign finance system needed "fundamental changes" or needed to be rebuilt. 84% said that money has too much influence in political campaigns and almost 80% favored limiting the amount of money any one entity could contribute to a campaign.}

The big question, though, is how do we change things? Well, there are only two ways we currently can suggest that will help get it done:

1) Support candidates who favor campaign finance reform laws. In some cases those people are hard to find but check out your local candidates' positions on the issue and, while we don't advocate voting based on just one issue, in this case we do suggest that you give this issue a lot of weight in your decision making.

2) Make a contribution to one of a number of organizations that are springing up to fight the influence of money in politics.

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