As if the latest campaign ads weren't ugly enough, the ruling can be seen as a wide open door for big businesses to spend big bucks on attacks ads in order to get what—and who—they want. The 5 judges in favor said the decision enhanced the First Amendment, allowing 'companies and unions' the right to free speech; the 4 dissenters said such corporate money would muddy the waters of democracy.
In his 90-page opinion, dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens, an 89-year old soft-spoken Republican and former antitrust lawyer from Chicago, wrote that, "The court's blinkered and aphoristic approach to the First Amendment may well promote corporate power at the cost of the individual and collective self-expression." His 5 colleagues, in other words, were wrong to treat corporate speech the same as that of human beings.
Which worries me. Considering the economic disarray of journalism today, how will we afford to pay reporters to do the one thing most necessary for a democracy: report? But with this new ruling, maybe the better question is, how can we afford not to? Because ultimately it will be the majority of citizens across the country—the 'human beings'—who will be the losers here.