(Considered putting this in the '10 election forum, but I’m also concerned about the future too, so I decided to put it here.)
Now that the results are coming in, we’re pretty close to having had our first round of elections under the controversial Citizens United decision from the Supreme Court. Has it had any effect on the results? Will it have the same, or better/worse, results in the future? And is there any way to actually tell either way? Is it even possible to deal with without a good way to tell? Even if so, is there no way to do so without running afoul of the same Constitutional issues that got the case in front of the Supreme Court in the first place?
For those wondering, Citizens United v Federal Election Commission was a Supreme Court decision holding that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment. Citizens United is a non-profit corporation that slimed Hillary Clinton in a manner that apparently violated the McCain–Feingold Act.
Since the Act was only passed in 2002, and corporate advertising was never controlled in that manner before, I really don’t see this as a change at all.
My understanding was that, with the Citizens United case, the Supreme Court went and overturned more than just the McCain-Feingold act. According to Wikipedia, it also overturned Austin vs. Michigan Chamber of Commerce from 1990, and partially overturned McConnell vs. Federal Election Committee from 2003.
So, it does appear to me more of a change than you seem to believe.
McConnell vs. Federal Election Committee was a decision on the McCain-Feingold act. Austin vs. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, while having national implications because it was a Supreme Court case, was still only a ruling on a state law, one which was easily gotten around at that. So, no, I maintain that the CU decision didn’t change much.