Government for Sale?

Our Supreme Court has recently issued some very controversial rulings. All the rulings create dissatisfaction among political blogs but there is one ruling I truly believe threatens democracy as our form of government. The name of that case is “Citizens United.”

Even though there have been reasonable limits on amounts of money spent on elections the past few years, this case seems to have hung a “For Sale” sign on the election process as we know it. The court ruled in Citizens United that spending money was a form of constitutional free speech and could not be limited. Not only did Citizens United ruling allow unlimited amounts of money to be spent in support of politics, it also allows any amount of money to be spent without revealing its source.

The Citizens United ruling makes America different from every other developed nation. Every other developed country has some reasonable limit on how much money can be spent in support of an election. Most also have provisions of transparency so that voters can determine the source of political contributions. I doubt seriously that our forefathers authoring our constitution would have dreamed that elections in America would be so influenced by the dollar instead of true public speech or writing of its citizens. It is estimated by some so-called experts that over a billion dollars will be spent on the next presidential election in the United States. In my opinion, this in itself is a threat to the underlying basis of a free democratic society controlled by the people.

Unless we in the near future offer a constitutional amendment to reverse the decision of Citizens United, America could be a nation where its leadership is simply for sale.