It can’t be emphasized enough that this decision changes the way that politics and elections have been funded for over 100 years. In 1907 Congress passed the Tillman Act, which banned all corporate contributions to candidates for federal office. By a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court in one fell swoop overturned corporate restrictions that had been put in place over the years and gave an elite status to especially large corporations. Just imagine an election campaign where a single corporation like a Wal-Mart spent even a small percentage of its tens of billions of dollars to influence the outcome. If Wal-Mart wanted to eliminate all trade rules so it could import more from foreign countries, wouldn’t its billionaire owners run its own Wal-Mart funded campaign ads for candidates who supported its views?

Now that corporations can use their general income to influence the outcomes of elections, what will stop them from going after those in Congress who oppose the export of jobs to cheaper countries, and those who would tax corporate profits at the expense of individual Americans?

What if a company wanted a change in legislation before Congress and there were candidates who were willing to sell their votes on the company’s issue, not based on what was right or beneficial for America, but solely because the company told them to?

The majority, according to Justice Stevens, who opposed this decision with three other Justices, presented an unsubstantiated decision based upon wishful thinking rather than the past precedent of 100 years of legislation or even the commentaries of the original framers of the constitution.

The case was brought by Citizens United, a front group for the Republican Party and some extremist corporations that have funded CU’s anti-Democratic Party activities. To put it simply, CU is against working people’s interests, workers having labor unions and sensible trade laws, and is for the wealthy. They don’t believe the wealthy should have to pay equitable taxes, and they are for corporate profits. They have no idea how working people live and have no interest in your political ideas or your participation in the political process.

This is a radical group and their executives are no different. CU President David Bossie was Chief Investigator for the Republican majority’s House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight and led investigations on the Whitewater land deal and foreign fundraising during President Clinton’s re-election campaign. He also produced documentaries like “Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny (hosted by Newt Gingrich).

CU vice-president and legal counsel Michael Boos began his professional career as a campaign director for the National Conservative Political Action Committee and was a project director for another shadowy group called the Young Americans for Freedom, which has led campaigns undermining U.S. foreign policy.

CU Director of Media Brian Berry is involved with many right-wing extremists, including Sen. Kay Bailey-Hutchinson, another corporate-controlled Republican. Berry’s involvement with another group is particularly troublesome. He has been conducting seminars on campaign messaging at the International Republican Institute in Azerbaijan, Haiti, Morocco, Southern Sudan and Ukraine. All of these involve what even the previous Republican leadership would call “countries under suspicion.”

The Supreme Court referred to the framers of our Constitution as if they somehow had written rights for corporations into the document, when nowhere does the first amendment discuss “Freedom of Speech” for them. In his farewell address, President Washington cautioned the country when he referred to corporations and the Republican Party, “However, combination or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

The High Court’s decision seems to have brought America closer to enabling the very combinations and associations that Washington so aptly warned against 214 years ago. Now, only the common sense and attempts by fair minded Congressional leaders can stop the takeover of our government by corporations and the business bosses. Senator Dick Durban (D-Ill.) and Congressman John Larson (D-Conn.) have introduced legislation in both houses of Congress that would once again stop corporate direct payments into candidate elections.

We must support Durban and Larson’s effort by contacting our elected representatives in Congress and demand that they not only support the legislation, but sign on as co-sponsors.

Once again, the extremists in America are trying to overcome any objections to corporate control. We can all support our economic system, capitalism, however, we don’t have to give in to the conspiracies that corporations pay for again and again. With this Court decision, we should do more than just challenge corporate funding of elections. Americans can demand more control of corporations by amending the U.S. Constitution to make it clear that corporations are not “persons,” as the Court had earlier declared and that these “combinations” can only operate when authorized by the people. Call your Congress member and demand action.