Listen to the Supreme Court
You can listen to the arguments in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on CSPAN here: http://www.cspan.org/Watch/C-SPAN3_wm.aspx.
Public Citizen is involved in the proceedings too. Scott Nelson, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group, was inside the court this morning. He co-authored an amicus brief we filed with our partners (read it here: https://www.citizen.org/documents/CitizensUnitedAmicus.pdf).
What does Public Citizen’s new president, Robert Weissman, think about the proceedings today? Here’s his statement:
Overturning the court’s precedents on corporate election expenditures would be nothing short of a disaster. Corporations already dominate our political process – through political action committees, fundraisers, high-paid lobbyists and personal contributions by corporate insiders, often bundled together to increase their impact, and more.
If the court rules to free corporations to make unlimited campaign expenditures from their treasuries, the election playing field will be tilted massively against candidates advancing the public interest. Candidates and elected officials will be chilled from standing up for what’s right. And officials who take on the narrow interests of particular corporations – over a facility siting decision, or a specific subsidy, for example – will face the risk of retaliation in the next election.
Corporations don’t vote, and they shouldn’t be permitted to spend limitless amounts of money to influence election outcomes.
Learn more and pledge to protest at www.DontGetRolled.org!