First Comes First

Huzzah to the Supreme Court for its decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.  Rather than allowing the government to regulate political speech, the five-person majority, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, got rid of overall limits the FEC puts on contributions.

Justice Breyer, in his dissent, wrote "Taken together with Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, today's decision eviscerates our nation's campaign finance laws" as if that's a bad thing.  As always, he's worried about "democratic legitimacy" (rather than freedom of speech, which I would think is at issue), and as always, that means he's willing to fight for it by doing whatever Democrats prefer. Not that he's consciously trying to help any party, no more than Roberts is--he just believes democratic legitimacy works out to mean you support what a modern liberal believes is good for society, whether you're with the majority or against, such as in cases dealing with abortion limits or the Establishment Clause or affirmative action.

Then there are the politicians, like John McCain, who are disappointed in the decision. After all, when you hold office, and have the huge advantage of incumbency, who wants to make it easier for others to criticize you when you're running for reelection?

Finally, there are the newspapers, with billions of dollars of freedom of speech on their side every day. They tend to be owned by rich people and run by corporations, so it only stands to reason that quite a few of them feel they deserve a near-monopoly on freedom of speech.

The story was reported everywhere, of course, but the first place I saw it was USA Today.  And how did they characterize the decision in their first sentence?

The Supreme Court took another step Wednesday toward giving wealthy donors more freedom to influence federal elections.

Now that's reporting.