WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's decision Thursday to lift long-standing limits on corporate campaign spending exalts free speech above fears about political corruption.
The 5-4 ruling exposes how the court's stark ideological divide is stronger than Chief Justice John G. Roberts' stated fealty to precedence and consensus building. It's a markedly activist decision, going well beyond what the justices were asked to do.
And, not least, the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission will almost certainly incite further efforts to unravel campaign finance restrictions in the name of the First Amendment.
"Political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it, whether by design or inadvertence," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court's majority.
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Legally, the decision could have equally dramatic effects. These include shaping the long-term jurisprudential reputations of Roberts and his colleagues.
During his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing, Roberts assured lawmakers that he would strive to achieve more unified court decisions. He further insisted that "judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent" that binds the court.
However, in what New York University Law School Professor Burt Neuborne called a "terrible, terrible body blow" to the court's institutional standing, Thursday's decision explicitly reversed an entire 1990 decision and part of a 2003 decision. Stevens spent a good portion of his 90-page dissent denouncing the seeming disregard for stare decisis, the principle of heeding past decisions.
"The majority blazes through our precedents, overruling or disavowing a body of case law," Stevens wrote, adding that "the path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution."
Ironically, the 57-page opinion that united the court's conservative wing might also provide ammunition for critics of "activist" judges.
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