The people lose

Corporations and special interest groups gained some power with a Supreme Court ruling loosening federal campaign law

Why not just have an auction? Put the name of the contested political office up on a blackboard, station someone nearby with a piece of chalk, and have him keep track of bids from special interest groups, $10 million per slash.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, we have here a United States Senate seat. Votes on all major issues of the day, including health care and insurance regulation. What am I bid? Yes? OK, we have $25 million from Acme Insurance International..."

In one of the most people-unfriendly rulings of recent times, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday issued a narrow majority opinion that will reopen the opportunity for corporations and unions and other special interest groups to invest huge amounts from their treasuries in "issue advertising" ultimately aimed at beating a specific candidate.

The effect is to loosen restrictions on such ads -- which often appear in the waning days of a campaign and focus on a particularly sensitive issue, such as abortion rights, and just happen to remind voters of a particular candidate's stance on such as issue. The ads have been in almost all cases negative. And they have been heavily funded by special interests that send the money through some advocacy group -- without having to comply with rules on contribution limits or disclosure of the contributors' identity.

Attempting to rein in this abuse, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance act prohibited the use of a federal candidate's name in such ads 30 days before a primary election and 90 days before a general election. And a previous Supreme Court, in 2003, upheld the law as constitutional. So Chief Justice John Roberts has effectively thumbed his nose at precedent.

Roberts said the ads still could not advocate a vote for or against a specific candidate, but his caveat is very narrow indeed. Any group could run almost any sort of ad and claim it wasn't targeting a candidate and argue the point 'til the cows come home. This decision came about in a case brought by Wisconsin Right to Life, challenging restrictions it faced in 2004 on ads that urged people to call the state's two senators to tell them not to fight President Bush's federal court nominees. One of the senators, Russ Feingold, is a Democrat who was seeking re-election. (He won.)

Bob Hall, executive director of the good-government advocacy group Democracy North Carolina, was on target in his assessment: "The U.S. Supreme Court's narrow majority (5-4) says corporations should be free to finance political advertisements that are thinly disguised as ads about issues. This is a step backwards; it puts elections up for sale to the highest bidder." It's not free speech the court is protecting, Hall says, but "expensive speech."

Yes, in basing his opinion on free speech rights, Roberts has indulged in some curious irony. "Issue ads" funded by bottomless pits of money from special interests, flying under the questionable colors of addressing issues that happen to pertain to a candidate, in fact diminish free speech by lowering the volume on the voices of average people, of everyone else.

Why shouldn't the financiers of these ads at least be subject to disclosure laws that apply to other contributors whose money is used to support or oppose candidates? They should. At least then, the public would understand that some "issue ads" were being bought and paid for by people with an interest in who wins or loses an election -- not just a single issue.