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Friday, May 27, 2011

Judge: Corporate Donations Ban Unconstitutional

Ruling cites Citizens United, says corporations have same rights as individuals to contribute to campaigns

A judge has ruled that the campaign-finance law banning corporations from making contributions to federal candidates is unconstitutional, citing the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United decision last year in his analysis.

In a ruling issued late Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Cacheris tossed out part of an indictment against two men accused of illegally reimbursing donors to Hillary Clinton's Senate and presidential campaigns.
Cacheris says that under the Citizens United decision, corporations enjoy the same rights as individuals to contribute to campaigns.
The ruling from the federa
l judge in Virginia is the first of its kind. The Citizens United case had applied only to corporate spending on campaigning by independent groups, like ads run by third parties to favor one side, not to direct contributions to the candidates themselves.

Cacheris noted in his ruling that only one other court has addressed the issue in the wake of Citizens United. A federal judge in Minnesota ruled the other way, allowing a state ban on corporate contributions to stand.

2 comments:

lastword said...

Why not just do away with all the pretense. Just let the corporations and the rich people appoint who they want to drive this country into the ground? Screw the individual. After all, they been doing it for how many decades? You're not even... attempting to hide your intentions anymore. Contributions from individuals are indicative of who they support and wish to win. Obviously the same is true with corps, but they have hundreds of millions and even billions at their disposal. Doesn't sound fair to me.

Anonymous said...

1:03
Corporations are people fool!

It's okay for big unions to support Dumbocrats exclusively with money they take by force from members right?