SUPREME COURT LETTER

President Obama will give his State of the Union speech tomorrow night. I will be surprised if he does not mention the most recent Supreme Court decision regarding corporate participation in politics ... and deeply disappointed. This is a decision which could, without exaggeration, alter the course of life in America.

I am sending hard copies of the letter below to Sen. Barbara Boxer, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and Rep. Henry Waxman. I encourage you to send this letter, or better still, your own version, to your representatives. We are witnessing, I believe, the the culmination of decades of effort to bring about a "corporatocracy" in America. It may not be too late to stop it, but it will take our best efforts.

My thanks to Renny Temple for the Jefferson quote.

Bart

“I hope we shall ... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

Thomas Jefferson, November 12, 1816

Senator Dianne Feinstein
United States Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Sen. Feinstein:

The Supreme Court’s recent decision to lift virtually all restrictions on corporate spending in the political arena is less an interpretation of the Constitution than it is a direct assault on it. Ignoring a hundred years of legal precedent, the ruling not only elevates corporations to the status of citizens - equating financial influence with free speech - but in effect it reduces actual citizens, with their lesser funds, to second class status.

It isn’t difficult to imagine a situation in which a corporate CEO (or his paid lobbyist) simply picks up the phone and orders a senator or congressperson to vote for or against a particular bill. The legislator would then be face with a simple choice: do as told, in which case limitless funds would be made available for his or her next campaign; or defy the order and expect to be hit by 24 hour-a-day attack ads in all the media. A simple choice, but a difficult one, even for the most honest politician.

If this decision is allowed to stand, America will no longer be a democracy, even in name. Our government will become no more than an extension of powerful, multi-national corporations. I implore you to act quickly and effectively to somehow reverse this heinous decision. All the chips are on the table. If we lose this hand, the game is over.

Sincerely,