Frank Wilkinson writes for Bloomberg View:

The 2016 presidential campaign is unfolding in Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s world.

Kennedy’s majority opinion in Citizens United, the court’s 2010 ruling on campaign finance, gave corporations, unions and billionaires more leeway in their political spending habits. And while the decision is sometimes credited, or blamed, for more impact than it actually delivered, there’s no question that big money has been running wild and free ever since it was decided.

In his decision, Kennedy pointed out why a previous court ruling,Austin, should be overturned and supplanted even in the face of stare decisis, the principle that precedent guides the court.

“Our precedent is to be respected unless the most convincing of reasons demonstrates that adherence to it puts us on a course that is sure error,” he wrote.

Fair enough. Five years later, in the thick of free-wheeling campaigns for presidential nominations, let’s subject Kennedy’s ruling in Citizens United to the same test. Does it deserve respect? Or has it put the court on a course of “sure error”?