Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
On January 21, 2010 the Supreme Court announced its decision on the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Ruling in favor of Citizens United, this allowed for corporations to commit unlimited funds to election advertising that did not go to the candidate directly. President Obama called out the Supreme Court in one of his state of the union addresses in relation to their ruling of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Do to this the chief justice of the Supreme Court decided they will no longer go to the state of the union addresses because they are just cheerleading events. Looking back now there is an interesting benefit to this decision; the labor unions gain the same advantage as corporations from this court case. Now at first thought this will also help the democrats, making Obama look bad for calling out the Supreme Court. Surprisingly Richard L. Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., came out to say this would allow them to be more independent from the Democratic Party because they can sit out of races where the democrat does not support their views, or support the republican candidate. “Kirsten Kukowski, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, voiced skepticism about labor’s declaration of political independence, noting that union leaders have often said similar things in the past, before returning to the Democratic fold.” In other words this can still help the democrats, but more importantly it magnifies the effects that labor unions have on elections. Another peace to this ruling is that labor unions may now advertise to the 90 percent of Americans that are not in labor unions once again augmenting the effects labor unions have on elections. This is something labor unions have been fighting in favor of for a long time. Allowing them to sway more than just union members and possibly changing the tided of an entire election. Before they might have made an election close but now the can win them. This could cause a powerful group to have a much larger voice going forward. For more information on this check out this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/us/politics/a-campaign-finance-ruling-turned-to-labors-advantage.html
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