Last week the United States Supreme Court provided what could potentially be its most far-reaching ruling in generations. The decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission removes over a century of precedent which had previously limited the amount of money corporations and organization could spend during political campaigns.

Technically each of the Supreme Court Justices, liberal and conservative, voted in favor of the measure, but each of the so-called “liberal” justices concurred only with the portion of the decision pertaining to “free speech”. Knowing they would be out-voted by a 5 to 4 margin regardless of their stance justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor opted to vote in the majority so as to at least have their voices heard in the legally binding documentation of the decision.

For years corporate America has been trying to loosen the ties that hold back its ability to drive politics. Many tycoons, and entire companies, have found a way around much of the campaign financing reforms that have been put in place during the past century. Most recently it has become the norm to have companies set up numerous “political action committees” to spread the ideals held by the Board of Directors or CEO.

Now, follow the Citizens United decision, they will not have to funnel money into various offshoots, they can simply spend limitless cash up front.

During the White House’s attempts to spread its message on healthcare reform dozens of corporate-backed PACs sprung up in opposition. Regardless of whether or not you believe that healthcare is a right to be provided by the state, or a privilege to be provided by personal wealth, there is not questioning that much of the rhetoric in these PAC ad campaigns was absolutely fraudulent.

The vast organization which rose up against healthcare would be just the tip of the iceberg compared to what we may see as early as 2010 when company-sponsored political campaigns roll out for the first time without any restrictions. Americans may be inundated with such voluminous advertising that they will no longer know where to seek the truth.

On January 21 The New York Times ran an article outlining some of the effects we will see in the next election cycle. Most Americans are well aware of the fact that businesses are more than happy to make politicians, from both sides of the spectrum, handsomely wealthy in return for political favor. Following the conservative Court’s decision last week, there is no telling how much influence lobbyists will have within the Capitol’s hallowed halls.

Many progressives have worried, in public and in private, that the entrenched conservative majority on the Court would lead to a restriction of civil liberties, the repeal of abortion rights, and perhaps the outlawing of same-same marriage. They were taken completely off-guard by this decision, which came in through the backdoor of a case that did not even approach the topic of political financing until Chief Justice Roberts specifically asked to hear arguments on those grounds.

The Supreme Court claims its decision is based on upholding the rights to free speech in the United States. What it may have done instead is limit the speech of nearly every individual in this country, at the behest of giant corporate interests who can simply out-spend even the wealthiest Americans.

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