Word: feingold
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Some backstory: in 2008 the conservative nonprofit Citizens United produced the anti-Clinton film Hillary: The Movie and arranged to distribute it using money from the group's corporate treasury rather than from its political-action committee--a crucial distinction under the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reforms of 2002. In a 5-4 ruling, the court found that distinction unconstitutional. If freedom of speech protects the right of individuals to air their political views, it decided, then that right extends to incorporated groups--like businesses, labor unions, Planned Parenthood and Citizens United...
...self-government and a necessary means to protect it," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority. A law declaring who can say what about elected officials, and how and when, did not pass muster. On the other side, Justice John Paul Stevens' 90-page dissent spoke admiringly of McCain-Feingold and shuddered to imagine the influence that big corporations and Big Labor might exercise over politics in the absence of such efforts. The ruling, he wrote, "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation...
...reform, perhaps in the form of a constitutional amendment. Without even the slightest of ceilings on corporate and union spending, elections could well turn into auctions—with televisions as auctioneers, corporations and unions as bidders, homes as arenas, and American voters as the prize. Although the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 still stands in certain respects, such that corporations and unions cannot finance candidates directly without limit, this decision could transform elections as we know them...
...competing worldview. For them, government is a force that ameliorates and repairs flaws in society - in this case, the corrosive effect of wealth on open democracy. The 90-page dissent spoke admiringly of the many years of debate and the 100,000 pages of documents underlying the McCain-Feingold reforms of 2002, and shuddered to imagine the influence that big corporations and big labor groups might exercise over politics in the absence of such congressional efforts...
...sets its policy. Other potential amendments include one to increase funding for troop training, an amendment expressing the sense of the Senate in support of troop increases and maybe even one expressly supporting McChrystal's recommendations. On the Democratic side, an amendment is expected, perhaps from Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, that would set a timeline for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. (See pictures of the battle in Afghanistan's Kunar province...