"On Tuesday, at the behest of vice-president J. Divan Vance, it heard arguments in favor of taking another big whack at the country's tattered campaign-finance laws. From NBC News: The Supreme Court's conservative majority has long been skeptical of campaign finance restrictions on free speech grounds, and Republicans have often brought challenges against them. Some of those justices expressed skepticism about the limits during Tuesday's argument, while liberal justices defended them."
"Hanging over the hearing was the legacy of the Supreme Court's wave of rulings that have pared back campaign finance restrictions over the years, including the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision, which paved the way for unlimited independent expenditures by outside groups known as super PACs."
"Nice try, there, Justice Spuds. But the parties and the independent groups are not in competition with each other. Since Citizens United, political money has become one deep, commingled sea of money, its sources indistinguishable from each other and the perversions of politics that are characteristic of each completely irrelevant to the overall corruption of the political institutions."
Supreme Court conservatives moved to further loosen campaign finance limits, hearing challenges aimed at coordinated-spending restrictions. A Tuesday argument, urged by vice-president J. Divan Vance, centered on whether longstanding limits infringe free-speech rights and whether striking them down would reshape funding dynamics. Past decisions such as Citizens United enabled unlimited independent expenditures and expanded super PAC influence. Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested removing coordinated-spending limits could revive national parties' power relative to outside groups. Critics counter that parties and independent groups now operate within a single, commingled pool of political money whose indistinguishable sources have intensified corruption and weakened institutional accountability.
Read at www.esquire.com
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