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Supreme Court building, Washington, DC, USA. Front facade. (Photo: Daderot / Wikimedia Creative Commons)
In 'Blow to Democracy,' SCOTUS Strikes Down Campaign Contribution Limits
Ruling in closely watched McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission case slammed as 'establishing plutocrat rights'
Apr 02, 2014
In a boon to the role of big money in politics, the Supreme Court on Wednesday narrowly struck down overall limits on the amount of money individuals can contribute to candidates, parties and political action committees during the federal two-year election cycle.
The decision left the cap of $2,600 per election that an individual can give to any single federal candidate but removed the limit on the grand total that can be contributed to all federal candidates.
The ruling means that a single person can write a $5.9 million check for expenditure by candidates, political parties and political committees, according to Public Citizen.
"This is truly a decision establishing plutocrat rights," said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, slamming the ruling as a "devastating blow at the very foundation of our democracy."
The 5 to 4 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts follows the widely criticized Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling in 2010 that allows corporations to independently spend unlimited amounts of money to influence politics.
"Today's decision in McCutcheon v. FEC is Citizens United round two, further opening the floodgates for the nation's wealthiest few to drown out the voices of the rest of us," said Miles Rapoport, president of Common Cause.
"With these two rulings, corporations and billionaires like the Koch brothers will be able to use their money to buy more influence in more places, gaining a tighter grip on our government," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch.
Commentary and updates are being posted on Twitter.
An Unconstitutional Rampage
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
In a boon to the role of big money in politics, the Supreme Court on Wednesday narrowly struck down overall limits on the amount of money individuals can contribute to candidates, parties and political action committees during the federal two-year election cycle.
The decision left the cap of $2,600 per election that an individual can give to any single federal candidate but removed the limit on the grand total that can be contributed to all federal candidates.
The ruling means that a single person can write a $5.9 million check for expenditure by candidates, political parties and political committees, according to Public Citizen.
"This is truly a decision establishing plutocrat rights," said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, slamming the ruling as a "devastating blow at the very foundation of our democracy."
The 5 to 4 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts follows the widely criticized Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling in 2010 that allows corporations to independently spend unlimited amounts of money to influence politics.
"Today's decision in McCutcheon v. FEC is Citizens United round two, further opening the floodgates for the nation's wealthiest few to drown out the voices of the rest of us," said Miles Rapoport, president of Common Cause.
"With these two rulings, corporations and billionaires like the Koch brothers will be able to use their money to buy more influence in more places, gaining a tighter grip on our government," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch.
Commentary and updates are being posted on Twitter.
In a boon to the role of big money in politics, the Supreme Court on Wednesday narrowly struck down overall limits on the amount of money individuals can contribute to candidates, parties and political action committees during the federal two-year election cycle.
The decision left the cap of $2,600 per election that an individual can give to any single federal candidate but removed the limit on the grand total that can be contributed to all federal candidates.
The ruling means that a single person can write a $5.9 million check for expenditure by candidates, political parties and political committees, according to Public Citizen.
"This is truly a decision establishing plutocrat rights," said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, slamming the ruling as a "devastating blow at the very foundation of our democracy."
The 5 to 4 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts follows the widely criticized Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling in 2010 that allows corporations to independently spend unlimited amounts of money to influence politics.
"Today's decision in McCutcheon v. FEC is Citizens United round two, further opening the floodgates for the nation's wealthiest few to drown out the voices of the rest of us," said Miles Rapoport, president of Common Cause.
"With these two rulings, corporations and billionaires like the Koch brothers will be able to use their money to buy more influence in more places, gaining a tighter grip on our government," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch.
Commentary and updates are being posted on Twitter.
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LATEST NEWS
'Totally Lawless': Judge Orders Trump to Return Man Sent to El Salvador Prison in 'Error'
"This was an illegal act," said U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis.
Apr 06, 2025
A federal court judge on Sunday declared the Trump administration's refusal to return a man they sent to an El Salvadoran prison in "error" as "totally lawless" behavior and ordered the Department of Homeland Security to repatriate the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, within 24 hours.
In a 22-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis doubled down on an order issued Friday, which Department of Justice lawyers representing the administration said was an affront to his executive authority.
"This was an illegal act," Xinis said of DHS Secretary Krisi Noem's attack on Abrego Garcia's rights, including his deportation and imprisonment.
"Defendants seized Abrego Garcia without any lawful authority; held him in three separate domestic detention centers without legal basis; failed to present him to any immigration judge or officer; and forcibly transported him to El Salvador in direct contravention of [immigration law]," the decision states.
Once imprisoned in El Salvador, the order continues, "U.S. officials secured his detention in a facility that, by design, deprives its detainees of adequate food, water, and shelter, fosters routine violence; and places him with his persecutors."
Trump's DOJ appealed Friday's order to 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Virginia, but that court has not yet ruled on the request to stay the order from Xinis, which says Abrego Garcia should be returned to the United States no later than Monday.
Trump Escalates 'Illegal' and 'Immoral' Push for IRS Data to Fuel Mass Deportations
"You'd be a fool to think Trump won't go after others he dislikes," warned Sen. Ron Wyden, "including American citizens."
Apr 06, 2025
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon slammed the Trump administration over the weekend in response to fresh reporting that the Department of Homeland Security has intensified its push for access to confidential data held by the Internal Revenue Service—part of a sweeping effort to target immigrant workers who pay into the U.S. tax system yet get little or nothing in return.
Wyden denounced the effort, which had the fingerprints of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, all over it.
"What Trump and Musk's henchmen are doing by weaponizing taxpayer data is illegal, this abuse of the immigrant community is a moral atrocity, and you'd be a fool to think Trump won't go after others he dislikes, including American citizens," said Wyden, ranking member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, on Saturday.
Last week, the White House admitted one of the men it has sent to a prison in El Salvador was detained and deported in schackles in "error." Despite the admitted mistake, and facing a lawsuit for his immediate return, the Trump administration says a federal court has no authority over the president to make such an order.
"Even though the Trump administration claims it's focused on undocumented immigrants, it's obvious that they do not care when they make mistakes and ruin the lives of legal residents and American citizens in the process," Wyden continued. "A repressive scheme on the scale of what they're talking about at the IRS would lead to hundreds if not thousands of those horrific mistakes, and the people who are disappeared as a result may never be returned to their families."
According to the Washington Post reporting on Saturday:
Federal immigration officials are seeking to locate up to 7 million people suspected of being in the United States unlawfully by accessing confidential tax data at the Internal Revenue Service, according to six people familiar with the request, a dramatic escalation in how the Trump administration aims to use the tax system to detain and deport immigrants.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security had previously sought the IRS’s help in finding 700,000 people who are subject to final removal orders, and they had asked the IRS to use closely guarded taxpayer data systems to provide names and addresses.
As the Post notes, it would be highly unusual, and quite possibly unlawful, for the IRS to share such confidential data. "Normally," the newspaper reports, "personal tax information—even an individual's name and address—is considered confidential and closely guarded within the IRS."
Wyden warned that those who violate the law by disclosing personal tax data face the risk of civil sanction or even prosecution.
"While Trump's sycophants and the DOGE boys may be a lost cause," Wyden said, "IRS personnel need to think long and hard about whether they want to be a part of an effort to round up innocent people and send them to be locked away in foreign torture prisons."
"I'm sure Trump has promised pardons to the people who will commit crimes in the process of abusing legally-protected taxpayer data, but violations of taxpayer privacy laws carry hefty civil penalties too, and Trump cannot pardon anybody out from under those," he said. "I'm going to demand answers from the acting IRS commissioner immediately about this outrageous abuse of the agency.”
With US Now a 'Pseudo-Democracy,' Sanders Says Democrats Have to Answer One Key Question
"I think that the Democratic Party has to make a fundamental decision," says the independent Senator from Vermont, "and I'm not sure that they will make the right decision."
Apr 06, 2025
"I think when we talk about America is a democracy, I think we should rephrase it, call it a 'pseudo-democracy.'"
That's what Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Sunday morning in response to questions from CBS News about the state of the nation, with President Donald Trump gutting the federal government from head to toe, challenging constitutional norms, allowing his cabinet of billionaires to run key agencies they philosophically want to destroy, and empowering Elon Musk—the world's richest person—to run roughshod over public education, undermine healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and attack Social Security.
Taking a weekend away from his ongoing "Fight Oligarchy" tour, which has drawn record crowds in both right-leaning and left-leaning regions of the country over recent weeks, Sanders said the problem is deeply entrenched now in the nation's political system—and both major parties have a lot to answer for.
"One of the other concerns when I talk about oligarchy," Sanders explained to journalist Robert Acosta, "it's not just massive income and wealth inequality. It's not just the power of the billionaire class. These guys, led by Musk—and as a result of this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision—have now allowed billionaires essentially to own our political process. So, I think when we talk about America is a democracy, I think we should rephrase it, call it a 'pseudo-democracy.' And it's not just Musk and the Republicans; it's billionaires in the Democratic Party as well."
Sanders said that while he's been out on the road in various places, what he perceives—from Americans of all stripes—is a shared sense of dread and frustration.
"I think I'm seeing fear, and I'm seeing anger," he said. "Sixty percent of our people are living paycheck-to-paycheck. Media doesn't talk about it. We don't talk about it enough here in Congress."
In a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Friday night, just before the Republican-controlled chamber was able to pass a sweeping spending resolution that will lay waste to vital programs like Medicaid and food assistance to needy families so that billionaires and the ultra-rich can enjoy even more tax giveaways, Sanders said, "What we have is a budget proposal in front of us that makes bad situations much worse and does virtually nothing to protect the needs of working families."
LIVE: I'm on the floor now talking about Trump's totally absurd budget.
They got it exactly backwards. No tax cuts for billionaires by cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for Americans. https://t.co/ULB2KosOSJ
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 4, 2025
What the GOP spending plan does do, he added, "is reward wealthy campaign contributors by providing over $1 trillion in tax breaks for the top one percent."
"I wish my Republican friends the best of luck when they go home—if they dare to hold town hall meetings—and explain to their constituents why they think, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, it's a great idea to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut Medicaid, education, and other programs that working class families desperately need."
On Saturday, millions of people took to the street in coordinated protests against the Trump administration's attack on government, the economy, and democracy itself.
Voiced at many of the rallies was also a frustration with the failure of the Democrats to stand up to Trump and offer an alternative vision for what the nation can be. In his CBS News interview, Sanders said the key question Democrats need to be asking is the one too many people in Washington, D.C. tend to avoid.
"Why are [the Democrats] held in so low esteem?" That's the question that needs asking, he said.
"Why has the working class in this country largely turned away from them? And what do you have to do to recapture that working class? Do you think working people are voting for Trump because he wants to give massive tax breaks to billionaires and cut Social Security and Medicare? I don't think so. It's because people say, 'I am hurting. Democratic Party has talked a good game for years. They haven't done anything.' So, I think that the Democratic Party has to make a fundamental decision, and I'm not sure that they will make the right decision, which side are they on? [Will] they continue to hustle large campaign contributions from very, very wealthy people, or do they stand with the working class?"
The next leg of Sanders' "Fight Oligarchy' tour will kick off next Saturday, with stops in California, Utah, and Idaho over four days.
"The American people, whether they are Democrats, Republicans or Independents, do not want billionaires to control our government or buy our elections," said Sanders. "That is why I will be visiting Republican-held districts all over the Western United States. When we are organized and fight back, we can defeat oligarchy."
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