The Supreme Court and Citizens United

On my drive from my home to the congregation I serve one hour away, I catch up on my podcasts of various news shows and game shows mostly found on National Public Radio. Driving to work this morning, I listened to Bill Moyers interview Nick Gillespie, a Libertarian journalist, and Lawrence Lessig, a legal scholar, over the Supreme Court decision in January that essentially opens the gates for corporations to flood our democratic system with even more money than they do now. The Libertarian argued that our constitutional right to free speech was upheld by the Supreme Court when they made their decision. He said, "I think it was a victory for free speech, in the end. And if anything, it didn't go far enough. Campaign finance regulation is always a suppression of speech. And this law addresses a small aspect of it. That should help the quality and quantity and variety of political speech."

Others see that more corporate dollars in our system of government will lead us to a government by the corporations and not "for the people." President Obama shared his dismay over this decision in his State of the Union address. Yesterday Chief Justice Roberts was out and about criticizing the president for criticizing the Court.

This is certainly a troubling issue. I have had many conversations with folks who say that the founding principle of our democracy is the vote. If this is true (and in future posts I will explain how the vote is but only one part of our democracy) then we are in big trouble. Think Fox news. Think Swift Boating. Is our citizenship educated enough on the issues not to be fooled by fake commercials promoting the issues and concerns and profits of a corporation?

This recent Supreme Court decision is the bell tolling for the inevitable death of our democracy unless Congress can find a way around their decision. A huge influx of money from corporations already is preventing us from having Universal Health Care.

Why is this an issue of concern for people who consider themselves religious or who simply believe that people are more important than profit? When money, and in the US money is power, speaks it drowns out the voices of those who most need to be heard.