Perhaps the most important ruling of the Robert's court, Citizen's United has changed American politics for the worse.
The basic theory behind the decision is this: corporations are people and money is speech. Therefore, the first amendment allows corporations to give unlimited contributions to super PACs.
Because the ruling was made in 2010 we are just beginning to see all of the negative effects that have come from such a terrible decision. The rich have always enjoyed large influence in politics, but never to the extent that they now have.
In Wisconsin, Scott Walker has been called for recall elections because of his oppressive laws against collective bargaining rights and equal pay for women. In a pre-Citizen's United world the result would be a mostly undisputed victory for Tom Barrett; however, Gov. Walker has outspent him 25 to 1 in misleading advertisements allowing him to actually be winning in the polls.
In the general election for the first time in history, the incumbent, President Obama, is likely to be outspent by his challenger Gov. Romney. Of course, these donations to Romney's campaign will be repaid with further tax cuts and deregulation that will hurt the average Americans who do not benefit from these policies.
It is considered general knowledge that money corrupts, so by this logic wouldn't infinite money corrupt infinitely? If we want politicians to start working for the American people again, if we want politicians who will take a stand and refuse to cut programs that help people such as medicare, medicaid, and social security when we have an superfluous defense budget as well as subsidies for oil companies who already have one of the largest profit margins of any industry, we need to repeal Citizen's United and get big money out of politics.
Does this seem like something the founding fathers would have wanted? One of the biggest motives behind the American Revolution was the fact that our "virtual representation" in British Parliament was not working to help us. A Democratic Republic only works when the elected officials are working for all of their constituents not just the ones that keep the cash flow coming. Otherwise, we might as well become a plutocracy where the rich, sorry, the "job creators" are allowed full rule.
