BREAKING: President Obama going with Merrick Garland for SCOTUS

[Hortensis]

134. No, it's not a right-wing rag, and even one of those

won't cite ALL the times.

"There are few issues in the last decade on which the Court has been so consistently and bitterly divided as it has over campaign-finance law. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently decried “what has happened to elections in the United States and the huge amount of money it takes to run for office.” She argued that eventually, “sensible restrictions” on campaign financing will again be in place because “the true symbol of the United States is not the eagle, it’s the pendulum—when it swings too far in one direction, it will swing back.”

On the Court, that swing back only requires one new or existing justice to adopt the approach of four current members. A shift in the Court could permit reasonable regulation of big money in politics. To be sure, state and federal legislators would need to pass new laws to regain the ground that has been lost, and mere reversal of campaign-finance decisions of the last decade would not solve all of the problems of excessive influence. Because of older Supreme Court decisions, for example, new laws still could not limit the total amount of spending in any election.

... By contrast, appointment of one or more justices who share the vision of the Court’s four-member minority could bring substantial power over elections and the political process back to ordinary Americans."

This last was, of course, before Scalia providentially dropped dead. We now know that our liberal Democratic president will hopefully be able to appoint that fifth justice.