The Roberts Supreme Court’s Latest Offense Against Democracy

Let’s try something different today.  I’ve been reading a lot in recent days about last week’s startling and disappointing Supreme Court decision to further encourage the cancer that is money in our politics, and would love to share some of that with you all.

John_RobertsWhat you see below is a list of the sources, headlines and first few sentences of several articles on that subject that I found worth noting.  (Actually, I tagged them in my RSS reader and then went back to survey the recent articles with that tag.)

  • James Fallows: Who’s the Most Accomplished Republican Strategist of the Day? Tomorrow morning, we start in with a big installment of American Futures reports. For now, followup on two previous items, one and two, on what we have learned about the Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Roberts via the latest McCutcheon ruling. 1) The most consequential Republican. A reader writes: I enjoyed  …  the excellent Emily Bazelon piece that explains how he expertly cloaks his acti…
  • James Fallows: On Anger, Cynicism, and Public Discussion I have a several-day stretch ahead of being away from the Internet, but before I go I wanted to follow up on one point. Some people liked, and some people very much did not like, an item I did late last night on Chief Justice John Roberts. It’s almost always a mistake to let yourself sound angry, and I almost always regret doing so. Here’s why I take this tone on this subject. In the modern politi…
  • The New York Review of Books: One Dollar, One Vote David Cole As Senator Mitch McConnell, an outspoken opponent of regulating campaign spending, has conceded, trying to put limits on political donations is not easy. In McConnell’s words, it’s “like putting a rock on Jell-O. It oozes out some other place.” But if it was difficult before the Supreme Court’s decision this week in McCutcheon v. FEC, it is likely to be impossible now…
  • James Fallows: Cynicism-in-Public-Life Contest, John Roberts Edition [Update: please see this follow-up item too.] If People magazine were based in D.C., instead of their Sexiest Man Alive specials they might run Most Cynical Person Alive contests. Obviously there are lots of candidates, but at this moment you would have to give the nod to John Roberts.  Let us travel back in time all the way to the summer of 2005. Take literally one minute to listen to these famou…
  • Daily Comment @ New Yorker: The John Roberts Project If you think that the Supreme Court’s decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission was bad, just wait: worse may be on the way. The issue before the Court was fairly narrow, even a little obscure. Congress bars individuals from contributing more than fifty-two hundred dollars to any candidate for federal office in any election cycle. It also bars individuals from contributing more than a…
  • The American Prospect: Will Disclosure Save Us From the Corrupting Influence of Big Money? There is going to be a lot of speculation about how the Supreme Court’s decision in McCutcheon v. FEC to eliminate the aggregate limits on campaign contributions will affect the influence of big money in politics. That’s because it serves to make an already complex system a little more complex, and there are multiple ways the decision could matter; on the other hand, it might make no difference a…
  • The American Prospect: Roberts Court: Government Must Be By, and For, the Wealthy Everyone who thinks that the rich don’t have enough influence on American politics can rest easier. In an expected but still depressing decision today, the Supreme Court struck down aggregate limits on how much an individual can donate to politicians and political parties within a 2-year window as a violation of the First Amendment. Having already made it impossible for Congress to place signific…
  • The Plank – TNR: The Stunning Chutzpah of the Supreme Court’s New Elimination of Campaign Contribution Limits If the slippery slope embodied by today’s Supreme Court ruling striking down another limit on money in politics were any steeper, the justices might have to add mountaineers’ traction cleats to their regal garb.  The…
  • The Plank – TNR: John Roberts Shows He Has No Idea How Money Works in Politics Shaun McCutcheon is the kind of donor that the Republican Party can’t get enough of. The CEO of Coalmont Electrical …