Government funding of campaigns would mean the evisceration of the First Amendment. Period. Look no further than Europe, where speech is so heavily regulated that individuals are put on trial for 'hateful' speech routinely , and campaigns are limited by law to a few weeks.

The battle for freedom is not against "evil corporations" as the leftists claim; but against the overbearing power-mad government, which wants to regulate away the First Amendment free speech rights of its citizens. Whether the citizens are individuals or whether they organize as an entity, is irrelevant.

The old right-wing "money=speech" nonsense, upheld by this corrupt, illegitimate* Supreme Court. The country is slowly being destroyed by a 5-4 majority.

*Since Bush Jr. was never legitimately elected, his nominees, Roberts and Alito, and therefore the entire court, are illegitimate.

American voters:

Think ahead to where the conservative majority on this SCOTUS is taking us. Do you really want our representative democracy dominated by wealthy elites (foreign & domestic)?

Even those of you who consider yourselves traditional conservatives should extrapolate this to your own future and the future of your children. This provides a "foot in the door" for international money by way of our corporations.

It is true that democrats also accept this money. BUT, it is not because we want to. It is because we HAVE to. At this point, to do otherwise is to let the corporatocracy win by default.

The "point of no return" is clearly in sight.

Always on the side of rich corporate people. This Supreme Court is the nightmare of the G.W. Bush administration projected on and on into our future for decades. Was it yesterday that they decided that generic medicines don't need health warning labels? And now they're giving the ultra rich yet another way to silence regular Americans.

It is clear that America is lost. We are all at the mercy of the mega-rich, and this will not change until we all stop bickering over the petty partisan puppet shows the rich provide for us. It's not Obama, it's not Bush, it's not any politician. Your enemy is Goldman-Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Federal Reserve..that is who owns you and rules you. They are your enemies. Money has more rights than all of us.

Reply to Fiesty Redhead, "Although the Supreme Court is not bound by the code, justices have
said they adhere to it."

The Supreme Court is "bound by the code", the Constitutional one. Constitution Of the United States, Article VI requires an oath by all government officials from all three branches, the military, and the States swearing to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. The Constitution establishes our system of government, plus it defines the work role for (Executive, Legislative, & judicial branches) Federal employees which is "to establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty."

The second part addresses their future performance, that is, what they swear to do in the future in the position they will be in (President, v. President, congress, senate, judicial, etc). It establishes a clear, publicly sworn accountability from them which is in their Oath of Office. "I [name] do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God"

Justices take this oath and another; "I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as ________— under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."

The same 5 Injustices that ruled in favor of bush vs gore In the Florida recount that ended the Democratic process have just ruled in favor of the big donors/large corporations that would put the average citizen running for political office out of reach.

Those 5 Injustices have truly become the"Enemy of the People"

Don't see why any candidate should get public money in this era of spending cuts. I don't think candidates should accept corporate donations. I think individual donations should be it, and if someone gets more individual donations than someone else, so be it.

Of course the rich can afford to run for political office and then continue the policies that increase and maintain their rich status, but I think their is a shift. It is what it is, in order for the common working person to achieve a political career it has to be ongoing grassroots. I don't think it should be such a media blitz, and mud slinging affair.

Each candidate can publish his/her position on issues, and their ideas, and plans and strategy. Each voter can read these things and then make an educated and informed vote, that is not based on cutesy commercials. Make campaign trips and public appearences and publish online or in major newspapers, and thats it. No radio, no TV and no drama.

Then take some of the money not spent on political campaigns and donate it to worthy charities.

And no one has to solicit money to retire debt acquired by campaigning. And there is no more sleight of hand and mind manipulation 3 minute spots on TV, or radio ads.

Let the writings of the candidates, their public speeches and the debates inform the public. Not the 3 am telephone calls, and out of context pictures, and quotes of the opponents. Blah. All clever but not real. Lets hear and read the real and no longer base our voting decisions on who looked good or bad in a campaign ad, how good the visuals and sound were, how witty the message, how appealing to the uninformed and uniterested, lets end the big money stuff. And spend that money on more worthy things.

The Free Press is just a memory since the corporations control the vast majority. The Supreme Court is an arm of the right-wing corporate interests. The House of Representatives is a carnival side show with the Teabaggers and Republicans playing games while Rome burns. The Senate is full of career politicians completely out of touch with the electorate. The President has tried hard and he's done a great job keeping America afloat but let's face it he's not a great inspirational leader and the country needs direction. The thought of a Teabagging Republican president is frightening since that would practically guarantee a right-wing activist Supreme Court for decades...

I think America is in real trouble and there is no clear way to put it back on track. The wealth gap has gotten so large just a few people control the capitol and politics as well. Education levels are dismal in America and the education system doesn't look like it is ready to improve that anytime soon.

We are in BIG trouble and the Tea Party/Republicans want more corporate tax cuts, more tax cuts on the rich, and the dismantling of social programs for the poor. It is not hard to see where this story ends and I just hope America can weather it...

This ridiculous notion that buying access is somehow free speech is going to destroy our documentary.

oops, it's going to destroy our democracy. The documentary will probably be just fine.

They believe a host of other stupid things in AZ so it would not surprise me if they believe the earth is flat. Which begs the question:

Why hasn't Arizona fallen off the edge of the earth?

 So, if a billionaire decided to spend ALL his money running for office in Arizona, do you think the taxpayers of that state should be on the hook for supplying matching funds to his opponent?

WOW, im really dissapointed in this country right now!

I guess this just guarantees that only the wealthy will be able to run for politics, and thus bringing with them their greedy corruption. We will never be able to have an honest person elected who would ever actually reign in corporate greed and risk taxing the wealthy!!

I think that all the American public really wants and truly deserves is a fair playing field where people with their own personal agendas and enough money cannot buy the election. Not really that much to ask for, is it? We do call this a democracy, don't we?

I think we should be able to figure out some way to do this fairly. Especially in this new electronic age we live in.

Money doesn't talk it swears!

Bookem. read Feisty's post above. It's pretty complete.

How does a USSC Justice (Thomas) with a JD ( Doctorate of law) "forget" nearly $700,000 coming into his household over a period of 5-6 years. How does he forget to report that on his financial disclosure statements, as required by law, under penalty of perjury??? How does he "forget" to report about $2m in real estate holdings in his wife'name??? I wish I had so much money that I could forget about $700K. I dont; neither does Justice Thomas. And he just might be as smart as I am!! LMAO

What is especially concerning is that Thomas then decided cases IN FAVOR of causes that were supported by the people whi PAID HIS WIFE! One might not be able to PROVE it, but it sure LOOKS like a quid pro quo dont it?? I get money from an organization ( Heritage Foundation) then I decide cases in favor of what they advocate! Things that make you go HHHHMMMMMMM....... (This is exactly what Alberto Gonzales was doing while Chief Justice of the Texas---- taking campaign contributions from certain businesses and then deciding cases in THEIR favor! In my view, the last trustworthy Republican on the Court was Sandra Day O'Connor.

What is MOST important here is the USSC Justices should be avoiding even the APPEARANCE of partiality. Years ago, Justice would never go to ANY political event, nevermind participate and advise and then get "gifts" for doing it. Thomas attended one political strategy event for half a day, hey was able to stay at that resort for 4 days at NO CHARGE!! 4 days if expenses for 1/2 days work, which he shouldnt have been doing in any case! Scalia and Alito have been doing similar things that NO USSC Justice should be doing concerning politics. As for otherjudges, even you dont believe that there are many Breitbart types who are scouring the neighborhood looking for similar dirt on the "liberals judges" I betcha something will come out and then be proved to be a bit of a fish story or of questionable veracity.

I FIRMLY believe that Thomas IS bought and paid for!! Remember, before he became a Supreme court Justice he held a POLITICAL job and was VERY involved in political causes. He has no record of being a legal scholar. I feel the same way about Scalia!. Both should recuse themselves from ALL cases even remotely related to politics until a thourough investsigation is completed! They have compromised the Court, they have compromised their impartiality, they have broken faith with the people!

This is too weird. The privately funded politicians get to spend all the money they want now, so that their freedom of speech isn't restricted... However using this same logic, the publically funded politician now has their freedom of speech restricted because they will only get a certain amount of money no matter what, but too bad! So how is the freedom of speech of a privately funded politician more important than a publically funded one? This is a very contradictory decision.

However, it is consistent with their decision that corporations are "individuals" and so can donate as much money as they want (in certain areas). That decision does not take into consideration that the people who run these corporations are individuals and that it is these individuals that are making these decisions...not the corporation, as the corporation has no brains or ability to think. Hmm, based upon this, I wonder if some politicians would qualify to be corporations? (humor alert).

Another victory for the billionaire class from an activist court.

This all goes in the same vein as the OBVIOUSLY GOP-corrupted US Supreme Court's previously having approved the outright buying of elections.

You see this decision basically declares that funding parity is not at all important in elections, while it is perfectly okay for massive, ANONYMOUS, EVEN FOREIGN, wealth to offset significantly lesser funded local-national opposition.

When you have the upper 2% of our society holding nearly 40% of the nation's total wealth -- well, it is easy to see what the US Supreme Court's end game is all about.

This US Supreme Court is clearly and OBVIOUSLY DEEPLY tainted with neocon corruption.

This is the kind of thing that is well received only by the ultra-wealthiest -- and, in this case, obviously neocon wall-street-corrupted republican crooks, AGAIN!! Of those upper 2%, 99% are republicans.

There they go again. The Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas court has all the integrity of the Taney court that declared Dred Scott to have no civil rights and added that the congress couldn't outlaw slavery.

They decide things politically, not legally and are totally biased. They wouldn't recognize the right thing if it came up and bit them on the rear end. The use "the law" to rationalize their proclivities. The Repubs get big bucks from corporations and billionaires like the Kochs, Scaifes, etc so the court enables them to buy what they want. Everybody else (we the little people) gets as much respect and protection from these berobed hypocrits as Dred Scott got.

We need to amend the Constitution to allow impeachment of Sups.

The Five of them have earned a new title for themselves, The Sewerprime court of Corporate Amerika.

Today the Supreme Court upheld the Constitution against attempts to control free speech. The only outrage should be that this was not a 9-0 ruling.

This law was a constitutional farce and deserved to be slammed down.

"Proponents of this state law made it clear that they were interested in “leveling the playing the field.” But the Court has said on numerous occasions that the Constitution and the First Amendment do not allow you to burden or censor someone’s speech to level the electoral playing field. If it did, then the amount of political speech you were allowed to engage in would depend on your income level or how much you had already spoken relative to other speakers, a crazy idea that unfortunately too many liberals (including justices of the Court) think is a good idea.

The bottom line of the Arizona law is that it financially punishes individuals and groups for speaking. As the Court said, citing to the landmark New York Times Co. v. Sullivan case in 1964, we have a “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” What the Court said in Sullivan was “True when we said it and true today. Laws like Arizona’s matching funds provision that inhibit robust and wide-open political debate without sufficient justification cannot stand.”

America's Al Qaeda members on the Supreme Court hand down another decision to destroy our elections. Their methods may be different from Osama but their goal is the same. Without campaign finance reform and elimination of all outside funds, we are doomed.

It is really too bad our Constitution doesn't allow us to elect the Supreme Court justices and that they would have to seek re-election every few years. What this court has done for Big business and to the average American should have our founding fathers spinning in their graves. I don't think Ben Franklin, John Hancock, Tom Jefferson and the many others who laid out this plan for America ever expected that a Court would leave the average American in such dire straits.