Republicans Support Big Corporations’ Campaign Donations

Glen Anderson, submitted to The Olympian March 19, 2010

When court decisions protect civil rights and the environment, Republican leaders object to “activist judges” who “legislate from the bench.”

In January the US Supreme Court majority – appointed by Reagan and the Bushes – overturned a century of settled law and made the radically extreme ruling that businesses can spend unlimited amounts of money on election campaigns.

People watching the Supreme Court testimony recognized that – instead of merely considering the case before them – the Republican Justices raised new issues that led the testimony into new areas. The Justices did this so they could impose the radically sweeping ruling they intended to make. These right-wing “activist judges” truly were “legislating from the bench!”

Decent Americans who support fair elections are still outraged two months later, but I have never heard a peep from any Republican Party leader.

Likewise, many conservatives want to deny loving, committed gays and lesbians from marrying, but they allow big businesses to “merge” into giant corporations that are “too big to fail.” These conservatives make the taxpayers bail them out instead of enforcing anti-trust laws that were passed a century ago to make sure businesses really compete instead of forming monopolies.

The Republican Party denounces court decisions that protect human rights and the environment as “judicial activism” and “legislating from the bench,” but they are eerily silent when its own US Supreme Court Justices do this to give big business even more power.

Apparently the Republican Party thinks big business does not have enough influence over Congress.

Sincerely,

Glen Anderson