With the battle cry "Don't Get Rolled," protests organized by Public Citizen are scheduled around the country Wednesday to highlight the flood of corporate money in election campaigns that the group thinks could result from arguments tomorrow in the crucial case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
"People are fed up with the disproportionate amount of corporate influence on our political system," said Angela Canterbury, an advocacy director at Public Citizen. "The last thing they want is less limits on corporate spending."
The special arguments set for Wednesday will re-examine precedents that upheld limits on independent corporate expenditures in federal campaign, rejecting First Amendment arguments that the limits restrict speech. But many commentators think the Roberts Court is poised to overturn those precedents, and the arguments will be closely watched.
Canterbury says she knows about plans for protest actions in Austin, Texas, Madison, Wisconsin, and Boise, Idaho, as well as blogging and other efforts to spread the word about the case and its consequences.
She said she has heard about plans to demonstrate outside the Court itself on Wednesday, but Public Citizen is not connected to them. "I don't know if it's possible to influence the Court with protest or advocacy," Canterbury said. Besides, she added, Public Citizen will be represented inside the courtroom, having been part of a brief defending the precedents and the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.
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