In case you missed it, here’s a video clip that shows Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s reaction to President Barack Obama’s remarks about the Citizens United v. FEC decision Wednesday night:
As you’ll see, Alito started shaking his head while Obama was talking about the Court reversing a “century of law” and in so doing will “open the floodgates” of corporate spending in campaigns. If it was the first part of the sentence Alito objected to, it could be argued that he has a point: the Court did not go back a century to overturn the Tillman Act of 1907, which bars direct corporate contributions to candidates. Instead, the Court struck down statutes of more recent vintage affecting independent expenditures — legally different from direct contributions — by corporations.
