Supreme Screw-Up

Bye bye, First Amendment:

A sharply divided Supreme Court upheld key features of the nation’s new law intended to lessen the influence of money in politics, ruling Wednesday that the government may ban unlimited donations to political parties.

Those donations, called “soft money,” had become a mainstay of modern political campaigns, used to rally voters to the polls and to pay for sharply worded television ads.

Supporters of the new law said the donations from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals capitalized on a loophole in the existing, Watergate-era campaign money system.

The court also upheld restrictions on political ads in the weeks before an election.