January, 21 2010, 02:34pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Lisa Graves, Executive Director
editor AT prwatch.org
(608) 260-9713
PRWatch.org Responds to Supreme Court's Radicial Decision in Citizens United v. FEC
Statement by Lisa Graves, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy
WASHINGTON
Today, five Republican appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court struck
down critically important laws regulating corporations' influence on
election and public policy. The Center for Media and Democracy strongly
opposes this radical decision by these five guys to rewrite the First
Amendment and give corporations even greater influence in elections and
public policy. With this decision, huge corporations like Goldman Sachs
and AIG will be able to use their enormous wealth to run campaigns
against the president or any person who might oppose their agenda. I think we have to stand up and say "No" to this decision.
In our view, this decision is terrible for our democracy. The
corruption of policy development we have already seen by the big
insurance companies in the health care debate, by the big banks
opposing regulations to protect our economy, and by big oil companies
slowing efforts to address global warming, even under the current rules
that the Court just struck down, show that this decision will make
things worse in our democracy. We cannot sit on the sidelines and let this radical decision stand.
You can help us stand up to the Court by casting your vote against this judicial activist decision and sending a strong rebuke. Please click to sign our petition and help put Americans before corporations.
Please share this link with friends who are concerned about the state of our democracy and excess corporate influence: https://tinyurl.com/AmericansBeforeCorporations. We also have a new portal
we are launching in SourceWatch to help educate the general public
about these issues and provide a gateway for getting more involved.
We are also lending our voice to nationwide coalition efforts to
fight this decision. In particular, CMD has joined the steering
committee of the Move to Amend
to support a broad-based effort to amend the Constitution to restore
individual rights. We are also supportive of another coalition focusing
on changing federal election law. But it's clear to me that we need to pursue the broadest effort to restore individual rights, so I hope you will join us in reasserting the primacy of the individual in our democracy.
When I worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee reviewing President
George W. Bush's judicial nominees and their agendas, I feared this day
would come. That's why I tried to help keep John Roberts off the
appellate court, and then was so saddened the day he was appointed and
when I saw President Bush promote him to become Chief Justice after I
had left the government. In reading the biographies, writings, and
speeches of right-wing nominees, it became clear to me that a
revolution in the law was being fomented to undermine the power of
ordinary people to regulate corporations in their communities. Today's
decision is a huge gift to corporations from a Supreme Court that has
been radicalized by right-wing ideology, whose political agenda was
made obvious in the Bush v. Gore case and whose very political decision
today only makes things worse. I think we have to rebuke the Court's arrogant decision and make sure the law puts Americans before corporations.
We cannot just wring our hands, in my view, and let this stand.
There is a great deal of work to be done. The Center for Media and
Democracy, which has been documenting corporate spin, lies, and
disinformation for over a decade through PR Watch, is ready to help.
We've been spearheading a specialized encyclopedia of the people,
corporations and money behind the headlines and policy, in SourceWatch,
and we recently invested in a major upgrade of that Website to make it
more useful for the millions of people who visit it each year.
Our democracy needs a long-term effort to reverse the Supreme Court's
radical decision, but we've got to start somewhere and we should start
today.
If you care about fighting spin and you are concerned about the health of American democracy, I hope you will join me in saying the Supreme Court really got it wrong today, and this must be fixed.
Sincerely,
Lisa Graves, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy, which publishes PRWatch.org, SourceWatch.org, and BanskterUSA.org
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a non-profit investigative reporting group. Our reporting and analysis focus on exposing corporate spin and government propaganda. We publish PRWatch, SourceWatch, and BanksterUSA. Our newest major investigation is available at ALECexposed.org. We accept no funding from for-profit corporations or the government. If you would like to make a financial contribution to support our work, please click here.
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Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
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Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
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Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
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