SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- In an historic 5 to 4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned a key provision of federal campaign finance law by relaxing limitations on individual contributions. Under the new rules, donors may give money to as many candidates, political parties and committees as they like. The justices also eliminated the cumulative caps of $48,600 to candidates and $74,600 to state and local committees during each term. Political watchdogs and advocates for campaign finance reform noted that under the new rules, or lack thereof, a donor with the financial means could contribute nearly $6 million to support every committee and every member of Congress belonging to his party of choice. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus praised the high court’s ruling as a “long overdue move to make slogans like ‘Invest in America’ and ‘Own a Piece of the American Dream’ hard realities.”
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts opined that the “Buy America [sic]” decision better honors the spirit of the nation’s founders than the current political system, which puts too much control in the hands of politicians. He also cited free speech as the underlying impetus for the ruling. Considering that corporations are now legally people, he offered, “money is their language. They can’t talk; currency is their method of communication.” Limiting the amount of money such an entity is permitted to spend on political causes runs the same legal risk as limiting an average person’s speech.
“To continue imposing these restrictions is akin to telling a school teacher she can only instruct her class using a handful of words approved by Congress,” Roberts said. “That is not the freedom our country’s architects sacrificed their lives, liberty and honor to defend. It should be the right of the individual, not the mandate of elected officials, to determine how many candidates and parties to support.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell lauded the decision as a triumph of democracy. Until today, regulations imposed an even playing field -- an ideology rooted in equality rather than freedom. McConnell called this the “stuff of communism. Why should the country’s hardest working individuals be confined to contributing the same as its laziest?”
“If you’re a wealthy American, that means you worked harder, longer and smarter than the person who’s just scraping by,” McConnell said. “And yet, our government forces you to spend your hard-earned money on those parasites. Well-to-do patriots must pay for the lazy man’s health care, rent, food, safety and education. And those lazy people keep electing politicians who enable this behavior. Why shouldn’t hard workers be able to donate as much money as they want to elect congressmen who will restore the country’s freedom, not perpetuate more socialism? We’re always telling people to buy American or invest in America. For the first time in my life, it’s now practical to think that people I know could buy America.”
High-earning Americans shouldn’t have to squander the fruits of their labor in taxes to support those people unwilling to participate in the nation’s prosperity, supporters of the decision proclaimed.
“Even IRS agents hate their jobs,” McConnell added. “They’re glorified collections people who don’t believe in the socialism they’re spreading. That’s why suicide rates within the IRS outpace those of combat veterans and priests who have been forced to marry gay couples by the current administration.”
Justice Antonin Scalia cited this landmark ruling as one of two contemporary political decisions made by SCOTUS to save the United States from lapsing into a socialist regime.
“Recall the Gore vs. Bush decision,” Scalia said. “Al Gore was a liar and crook, but he had tenure and celebrity among stoners, queers and hippies, which gained him the popular vote. George Bush lost the popular vote because campaign finance limits prevented donors from helping him get his message out. Fortunately, the Supreme Court intervened to strike down that injustice. And with today’s ruling, we continue to steer the country in the right direction by allowing dedicated Americans like the Koch Brothers to have a real voice in government...for decades to come.”
“The entire democratic experiment inherent in the conception of this republic, as the Founding Fathers envisioned it, was predicated on the principle that a government for the many should dethrone the colonial precepts of a government for the few,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “For too long, the voices of the many in America have been stifled or altogether silenced. We saw this most recently with the Occupy protests, in which the government turned a blind eye to a small rabble of unemployed, anti-American terrorists who, instead of contributing to the economy themselves by seeking jobs. effectively shut down commerce and the free market operation of the nation by attacking the many -- those citizens of many means, who earned their fortunes by working harder to keep America strong. Today, we are no longer perpetuating prohibitive contribution limits that prevent citizens from exerting their will; instead we are resuscitating the true spirit of democracy by freeing Americans to support as many senators and representatives as they wish. We have given them a voice. We have empowered them to buy a stake in America and to run a government by their [sic] people for their [sic] people.”
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