Justice Stevens Bemoans Changed Court ("Corporate power at the cost of the individual")

[kpete]

Source: ABC


Justice Stevens Bemoans Changed Court
Condemnation of campaign finance ruling fuels rumors of retirement
By JOAN BISKUPIC
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23, 2010


When liberal Justice John Paul Stevens dissented Thursday as the Supreme Court permitted new corporate spending in elections, he invoked the names of influential and long-gone justices.
Nominating John Paul Stevens is one of President Ford's most enduring legacies.

He began with retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, with whom he had worked on a 2003 case the majority was partially overruling. He referred to the late Justice Thurgood Marshall's warning in a 1990 case, also overturned, about how corporate money can distort political debate. Stevens then cited the late Justice Byron White about the importance of deferring to Congress, which had passed the law the majority discarded Thursday.

As Stevens invoked lions of the past and decried the majority's decision, he spoke for twice as long from the bench as Justice Anthony Kennedy had for the majority. Over the course of his 20 minutes, Stevens also spoke with more passion — and more weariness.

.............

"The court's blinkered and aphoristic approach to the First Amendment may well promote corporate power at the cost of the individual and collective self-expression the Amendment was meant to serve," Stevens wrote.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/justice-stevens-bemoans-changed-court/story?id=9635321