Discussion of President Obama's remarks about the Supreme Court and campaign finance during the State of the Union has once again turned attention to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The court ruled in January, by a 5 to 4 vote, that corporations must be treated like people in the political process -- that is, like very rich people who want to spend money to elect or defeat candidates for public office.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Thursday night floated the idea of implementing public financing for political campaigns as a long-term goal.

In an interview on MSNBC, the top House member was asked what she could do to limit the impact of a Supreme Court decision that could allow corporations to spend freely on politics.

SALT LAKE CITY — Kevin Garn may have violated election laws by not disclosing on federal forms that he paid a woman $150,000 in 2002 — the year he ran for Congress — to keep quiet about hot tubbing together in the nude. Also, the woman now says Garn lied about not having any contact in that tub.

The Senate Judiciary committee held a hearing tilted, "We the People? Read full story >

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision lopped off a major portion of American campaign finance regulation, leading critics to warn that elections would become prey to a new wave of anonymous money and aggressive political groups.

Relax — they’re already here.

President Obama and the Supreme Court have waded again into unfamiliar and strikingly personal territory. Read full story >

The Supreme Court’s recent slim majority decision in Citizens United has opened floodgates that long prevented corporate cash from drowning out the voices of American citizens in election campaigns. Those who care about the integrity of the American political process view this decision with concern and astonishment.

The Supreme Court recently freed corporations to spend more money on aggressive election ads. But if businesses take advantage of this new freedom, the public probably won't know it, because it's easy for them to legally hide their political spending.

Under current disclosure laws for federal elections, it's virtually impossible for the public to track how much a business spends, what it's spending on, or who ultimately benefits. Experts say the transparency problem extends to state and local races as well.

"There is no good way to gauge" how much any given company spends on elections, said Karl Sandstrom, a former vice chairman of the Federal Election Commission and counsel to the Center for Political Accountability. "There's no central collection of the information, no monitoring." Read full story >

HELENA - A pro-development group and a Bozeman painting company asked a Helena District Court on Monday to strike down Montana's 1912 ban on corporate donations and expenditures to political campaigns to comply with a January U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Corporate America is quite capable of communicating political messages that are both false in content and evil in intent. It is never good news when the folks who brought us the fictional characters of Harry, Louise, and clean coal are presented with more opportunity to influence public policy.

Reporting from Washington — Proposed legislation to block foreign companies from contributing money to U.S. elections could end up affecting well-known companies such as Chrysler, Anheuser-Busch and Citgo, according to legal experts and company representatives.

We now have a government of the rich

In the slow, miserable, heartbreaking decline of the American democracy, there came a moment of irreversibility. For me, and I dare to think history will confirm, it was the Supreme Court's decision last month in Citizens United vs. The Federal Election Commission — the ruling that basically overturned all limits on financial expenditures by corporations and other interests in federal election campaigns.

A trade association for foreign-owned U.S. subsidiaries has hired a former Democratic Party lawyer to lobby on campaign finance reform legislation working its way through Congress.

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress may soon be back in the business of raising soft money, the unlimited corporate and union donations that a 2002 law bans them from collecting for their campaigns.