http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html?hp
Sweeping aside a century-old understanding and overruling two important precedents, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. The 5-to-4 decision was a doctrinal earthquake but also a political and practical one. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision, which also applies to labor unions and other organizations, to reshape the way elections are conducted.
“If the First Amendment has any force,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, which included the four members of its conservative wing, “it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”
So that portion of McCain-Feingold has been overturned, though the decision was not unanimous... it was split pretty much along ideological lines.
On its central point, Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel A. Alito Jr., and Clarence Thomas. Justice Stevens’s dissent was joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.
With an election just ten months away, this means that we'll be seeing a lot more corporate advertisements for and against candidates in the upcoming election cycle. It promises to be very interesting.
Democrats are coming out against the ruling, calling it a "terrible mistake," and most Republicans are calling it a "victory for the first amendment" (John McCain, co-author of the bill, has not yet spoken on this SC ruling).
Personally, I think this is generally a good thing. We need MORE freedom in elections, not less, and the Constitution does not allow this kind of muzzling.
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