Chris' comments on the recent Supreme Court decision declaring political speech (the very speech our founding fathers died for) is right on.
This new law is simply incumbency protection. The only chance a challenger used to have in defeating someone with as much name recognition as a Trent Lott or Ted Kennedy was to raise enough money to get his own name out there. But now some crafty politicians only looking out for their reelection have taken that possibility away from them.
Perhaps the scariest part of this law is the ban on "issue ads" during a certain time frame before the election. No longer can a group, in no way affiliated with a candidate or party, create ads to discuss issues of importance to them.
You thought that elections were dirty before? You ain't seen nothing yet. Since groups can no longer discuss policy when choosing candidates, elections will continue to turn more and more towards who has the better tan and who looks better on TV.
The Supreme Court essentially based their 5-4 decision on one of the most shaky of standards I've ever heard. They based it on this "appearance of corruption" standard that was first thought of in Buckley v. Valeo. Never mind whether someone is actually corrupt or not, all that matters is if some smart public relations department can convince America that corruption exists. The Supreme Court has taken the question of constitutionality away from the actual Constitution, and placed it in the hands of marketing firms.
I've done way too much research on this topic. For some reason I'm a campaign finance junkie, but with each additional book I read or the more I research the topic, it becomes harder and harder for me to justify campaign finance regulations.
Ironically, this law will probably help the GOP, but I don't care, the law is wrong for a million reasons and it is setting dangerous precedent.
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