Democrats look for ways around court ruling

Court left little wiggle room for those against corporate big spenders and lobbyists

By: JournalNow Staff | THE WASHINGTON POST
Published: January 23, 2010

WASHINGTON

Frustrated Democrats began laying plans yesterday to chip away at a landmark Supreme Court decision unleashing corporate expenditures in political campaigns, but the ruling's broad sweep will make it difficult to stem a tidal wave of new spending in this year's pivotal midterm elections.

Major corporations and advocacy groups immediately began devising ways to take advantage of the 5-4 decision, which concluded that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as individuals and, therefore, can spend as much company money as they wish to oppose or support individual political candidates.

The ruling, announced Thursday, opens a significant new channel of funding for major corporations and their lobbyists in political campaigns, and it is seen as particularly helpful for Republicans because of their party's traditional bonds with industry groups. Labor unions, which strongly support Democrats, are also likely to take advantage of the ruling.

The decision further weakens the power of the major political parties, which must adhere to campaign restrictions enforced by the Federal Election Commission. Such trade organizations as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, by contrast, are now free to use money from their members to pay for ads explicitly targeting legislators who vote for legislation the groups do not like.

Rob Jordan, the vice president for federal and state campaigns at the conservative FreedomWorks, said his Washington-based group could reap particular benefits from a portion of the ruling that threw out restrictions on running political ads in the six weeks before an election.

Democrats hurried yesterday to lay out possible legislative responses to the ruling, even while acknowledging that only a constitutional amendment -- which is exceedingly unlikely -- could strike at the heart of the decision. Most campaign-finance experts agreed.

"There is not much that Congress can do," said Robert Kelner, a Republican lawyer at Covington & Burling. "It's hard for me to see any obvious route for campaign-finance reformers to take aside from tinkering around the edges."

Sen. Charles Schumer of New York and Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland are working with the White House on a bill that will likely call for strengthened disclosure requirements for companies that sponsor ad campaigns.