By Fred Wertheimer
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
With its disastrous Citizens United decision in January, the Supreme Court, its eyes wide shut, opened a Pandora’s box.
The five justices who struck down the ban on corporate expenditures in federal elections had no idea what they were unleashing on our democracy; no understanding of the consequences of their radical change to campaign finance laws.
They apparently decided they could do better than Congress at writing these laws. But they were dead wrong. They proceeded to “legislate” from the bench – a practice frowned upon by these same five justices.
Their decision was based on a series of fundamental mistakes.