Mitch McConnell (Jonathon Ernst/Reuters)
When do Republicans not care about states' rights above all else? Well, of course, when it comes down to the ability of corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in political campaigns. To wit, Mitch McConnell's
statement on the Supreme Court's refusal to consider Montana's objection to
Citizens United.
“In another important victory for freedom of speech, the Supreme Court has reversed the Montana Supreme Court, upholding First Amendment free speech rights that were set out in Citizens United. [...]
Corporations are people and any state that doesn't like that can suck an egg. But of course there's much more to it than just that. For one thing, McConnell can expect to be richly rewarded for his championship of corporate personhood, and not just with nausea-inducing videos like this one from the not-sponsored-by-grassroots-individual AmericanFutureFund.
But there's this, too: Super PAC spending for the 2012 cycle, and
where has it gone.
No wonder McConnell is applauding this decision. Remember his
top goal. And never mind that Montana has a long and storied history of politics corrupted by corporate intervention. Montana's Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike McGrath
wrote about that in his opinion upholding 1912 state law limiting political activity by corporations.
“At that time,” Chief Justice McGrath wrote, “the state of Montana and its government were operating under a mere shell of legal authority, and the real social and political power was wielded by powerful corporate managers to further their own business interests. The voters had more than enough of the corrupt practices and heavy-handed influence asserted by the special interests controlling Montana’s political institutions.”
That's just how the Supreme Court Five and the Republicans, with McConnell acting as their spokesman today, want to see American functioning today: our government "a mere shell of legal authority," with "the real social and political power [...] wielded by powerful corporate managers to further their own business interests." That's conservative utopia.