It’s the right result. Part of McCain Feingold is rolled back so that corporations and unions can run their own ads with their own money on behalf of  candidates.

In a 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for their own campaign ads.

It was this part of McCain/Feingold that gave rise to the 527 ads which, by the way, the left reviled. The Swiftboat Veterans for Truth etc were able to run ads and still are, by the way. But it was this aspect and the time limits put on ability to run ads (60 days before etc) that got Dick Morris’s movie on Hillary Clinton yanked off the air because they construed it as a “commercial.”
According to National Review (where that great McCain picture came from), here’s what it doesn’t cover:

But it upholds restrictions on direct contributions by corporate bodies to candidates, as well as requirements that the funding sources of political advertisements be disclosed to the public.

The case does not affect political action committees (PACs), which pool voluntary donations from individuals for direct contributions to candidates.

And here’s the key to the ballgame right here:

“We…hold that stare decisis does not compel the continued acceptance of Austin. The Government may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but it may not suppress that speech altogether,” Kennedy says in his decision.

Thanks Dick Morris. Yours was the case on which this decision was based. Take a bow. And thanks. Free speech wins today. Even corporations and unions are run by “people” and today their rights to free speech were upheld by the Supreme Court.

09 – 

Hans Van Spakovsky over at Heritage has this to say about Oregon’s campaign elections law and its relation to the US Supreme Court decision today:

Oregon does not limit the ability of corporations to make contributions or independent political expenditures in state elections the way federal law limits such activity in federal elections. So this decision will not affect Oregon’s rules for state elections. But it will affect congressional and presidential elections in Oregon since it will now allow unions and corporations, both profit and nonprofit, to engage in independent political expenditures that support or oppose anyone running for Congress in Oregon .

He also has this excellent discussion of the issues in the case here.