ANOTHER SAD DAY FOR AMERICA AND COMMON SENSE CAMPAIGN REFORM

Rochester, N.Y. -- Yesterday was an incredibly busy news day, most of it coming from the Supreme Court rulings. Setting aside the carnival-barking aspects of the Jan Brewer speech and Arizona’s SB1070 decisions, what really caught our attention is what happened in the state of Montana.

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Montana case challenging Citizens United. The same 5 conservative justices who swept away decades of case law when they first ruled on Citizens United, now continue to destroy any and all forms of common sense campaign reform.

We at the Voice Reporter have lost all faith in the judicial branch of government—especially with the SCOTUS. The justices are just as politically partisan as your average County Legislator— the only differences being the justices have colossal egos to manage.

We are rapidly becoming a nation owned by the super-rich and governed by the super-rich. We can now expect what the people of Montana fought so hard to prevent: widespread corruption as the moneyed interests buy government piece by piece. Already this election has been defined by Super PACs pouring millions of dollars into attack ads to protect the agenda of their anonymous donors.

We will not sit back while our country is slowly picked away by the 1%. We must join together across this country and organize to take back our government from corruption.

Even the 4 dissenting justices on the Supreme Court see the corrosive power of this decision. As Justice Breyer's writes:

"Thus, Montana's experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the Court's decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the Court's supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so."

The stakes are too high to allow our elections to be determined by the highest bidder. Just as the people have risen to reclaim their government before, we must once again fight back for the power and representation we need and deserve.