Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear the campaign-finance case Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission that could allow corporations to make unlimited donations to campaigns up to election day.

Since 1947 the Court has banned both corporations and unions from spending money on candidates running for federal office. Corporate spending has been banned since 1907.

According to a Washington Post article, the Court twice stood by the ruling, once in 1990 in the Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce decision and the 2003 McCain-Feingold ruling that bar corporations from spending profits to push for a candidate’s election or defeat.

Currently nonprofit organizations that do not take corporate funds are allowed to spend money on federal elections.

“Three in four Americans already fear that campaign cash is corrupting courtroom decisions,” Justice at Stake said in a statement issued today. “But if the Supreme Court overturns the Austin Case (as part of its deliberations in Citizens United), it will open a new floodgate of corporate and union spending in Judicial contests, making Americans’ fears come true.”

A Washington Post editorial asks the Supreme Court to simply expand the current law to include nonprofit organizations which only a minimal amount of corporate donations make up their financing. The editorial goes on to say if the Court overrules previous cases by changing the law it would be judicial activism, which would be the opposite of judicial modesty and adherence to precedent, what Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. claimed the court would do.

A New York Times editorial claims if the Court does overrule the cases and creates a precedent, “it would usher in an unprecedented ages of special-interest politics.” Corporations would be able to spend money on federal elections to help influence subsidies, stimulus money and tax loopholes that benefit the company.

Read the Chicago Tribune editorial here.

Previous MDN posts on the Citizens United case can be found here, here and here.