Yep, Hugo Chavez can now pour millions of dollars into political campaigns in United States elections. If there’s a candidate who’s unfriendly to Venezuela, Chavez can run commercials on TV bashing him or her in an effort to influence the election.
CITGO was purchaced by the Venezuelan government-owned Petróleos de Venezuela in 1990, and since corporations are entitled to free speech, CITCO can finance political campaigns promoting the candidate of their choosing or to defeat candidates they don’t like.
The Saudi government also owns companies in the U.S, so they have the same rights of “free speech.” Same for China and many other countries.
The issue was raised by Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissent in the case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission: “It would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans.”
As President Obama said in his State of the Union address the other night, “With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections. And I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.”
Sometimes it takes a radical push from one side to get real reform. Maybe we’ll get some real campaign finance reform as a result of this radical ruling from the activist right-wing Supreme Court judges.
DRUDGE RETORT 