Must-read Dahlia Lithwick Slate column:
More fundamentally, the majority and one dissenter seem to understand perfectly how much the American people resent being lied to about the burning need for courts to step in to protect the oppressed voices of powerless corporate interests. As Judge Nelson wrote in dissent, “the notion that corporations are disadvantaged in the political realm is unbelievable. Indeed, it has astounded most Americans. The truth is that corporations wield enormous power in Congress and in state legislatures. It is hard to tell where government ends and corporate America begins: the transition is seamless and overlapping.”
And that may be the very best part of this week’s Iowa/Montana/Citizens United smash-up. You see, Montana elects its Supreme Court justices. And while I still oppose judicial elections for all my old high-minded philosophical reasons, I can’t help but relish the idea that their decision to politely decline to follow Citizens United wasn’t merely a rebuke to the checked-outedness of five members of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was also an early judicial campaign ad. An elected court that knows a bit about the corrupting influence of big money on judicial elections running against the idea of big money corrupting elections. It’s kind of poetic, really. . Matt Taibbi is right when he says Americans have grown awfully tired of corporate candidates powered by corporate interests whose voices have now been amplified by corporate courts. I think what we just saw in Iowa and Montana proves again that corporations aren’t really people, money isn’t really speech, and that saying so isn’t just a way of speaking truth to power. It might just win you an election, too.