Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government   Free Speech for
Plutocrats: One Year Later   January 2011  by David Forte  It is
the one year anniversary of Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission, the case that held that corporations and unions have
a First Amendment right to expend funds directly supporting or
opposing a candidate for elective office. Previously,
corporations could sponsor issue advertisements, but now they
could speak about the candidate’s fitness for office. In other
words, the Court had declared that corporations have a right to
engage in classic political speech, for whom to vote for or
against is about the purest form of political speech that there
is.  In reaching its decision, the Court (by a 5-4 vote)
overruled one case, part of another, and voided a key provision
of the McCain-Feingold Act. Contrary to the claims of critics at
the time the decision was rendered—critics that included
President Obama—the decision left intact laws that forbade the
direct contribution of corporat