What's that old adage? Beware of the unintended consequences. Clearly, that's something that neither the Supreme Court nor the Republican Party factored in before crowing about the heinous Citizens United v. FEC ruling last week.
For all his high-falutin' talk of free speech and transparency and being able to face down those big bullying unions, it has apparently never occurred to Sen. Jim DeMint that SCOTUS just opened doors to multi-national corporations--i.e. FOREIGNERS--meddling in our elections.
MORAN: OK. And, finally, are you in favor of foreign corporations being able to participate in American elections through this decision?
DEMINT: I don't believe that -- right now, foreigners cannot give to the political process. And I hope, as this thing is sorted out, that we'll make sure that this is an American focus, so we'll have to sort all that out. I hadn't read all the details of the court's decision.
Ooops! Guess what, Jim? That's not how it works in the ruling. There's no distinction made in the SCOTUS ruling, so any corporation with American interests (even if the largest stockholder is a foreigner, like from...gasp! Saudi Arabia (shudder)!) can now influence American elections. As Sen. Bob Menendez says:
The problem is, a corporation is a corporation is a corporation. And a foreign corporation is going to be able to spend their monies in determining who is elected to the United States Congress. That's not good for the average citizen.
No, it's not. But that doesn't play into the thinking of the Republican Party, does it?
