US supreme court rules that corporations can buy candidates.

[The_vagabond7]

mrstickball said:

Your statement is false.

Corporations cannot contribute money to candidates. The only difference is that they can now purchase advertisements for candidates, rather than buying their own PACs and mask what they are doing. So if Exxon mobile wants to buy an ad for Obama, it has to buy that ad and state "this message brought to you by Exxon Mobil" rather than "this message brought to you by the American Center for Fuel Independence".

So instead of unions giving their money to candidates through PACs, everyone will know who the ads are bought and paid for. Even if you don't like what the ruling detailed, there will be more transparency on what corporation is favoring what candidate. They've always given money weather we've liked it or not, but now its more obvious.

PACs had a number of regulations. Corporations could not contribute from their treasuries directly to candidates or buy ads for candidates. A PAC could only collect a set amount of money per individual to spend on ads and the like. A corporation could only spend money to operate the PAC, paying administative costs, pay employees, ect. The actual funds came from the employees of the corporation or the members of the union, and only a set amount could be donated by each individual. If a single corporation sponsored multiple PACs then they had an agrigate spending limit. Now because of how the supreme court has ruled on "freedom of speech" of a corporate personhood, a corporation can donate as much money as they want without having to take capped donations from each employee. Exxon mobile can still use "american center for fuel independence" it just means that they can now pump billions of dollars into that PAC instead of a couple million "donated" by employees of exxon mobile. Their spending cap has been removed.