The Hill News

Thanks to last year’s U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission decision, it’s a whole new world for corporate power.

This decision has brought a flood of new money into elections, ratcheting up the cost of campaigns and increasing the time and resources needed for fundraising. Spending by outside groups funded largely by corporate interests and intended to influence the 2010 elections was more than four times as high than in 2006, the last midterm cycle, and many predict that this is only a drop in the bucket compared to what we will see from corporate interests in 2012.

Corporations generate massive profits in part because of investments approved of by their shareholders, and so the new "license to spend" that corporations have been given by the Supreme Court has real consequences to those shareholders.

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