>>As for corporations speaking...Why not? Establishing a legal framework for a business should hardly cost one their 1st amendment rights.
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>But it never did. The individuals involved always had the right to speak freely.
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>I think this is going to be an absolute disaster, with politicians being even more owned by corporations.
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>Tamar

Politicians are already owned by monied interests. Don't stop at corporations, think unions and other countries as well. The point is that the laws that were enacted to supposedly remove the money from politics not only did no such thing but made things even worse by giving incumbents more power. Because the monied interests had to form PACs and 527s and the like they needed political and legal experts to properly establish, maintain and coordinate those entites to conform with hoop jumping laws. In addition they restricted specific targets ads 30-60 days from an election. That's an outright restriction on political speech. The incumbents were made more powerful because the monied interests found it easier and cheaper to pay their campaigns directly rather than set up issue potentially illegally structured PACs and 527s. The disaster has been occurring for years, now the playing field is more level.

There is no way to remove money from politics. If the goal is to lesson money's influence in politics then we must actively seek to lesson the politicians' power. Less power = less powerful interests paying for access.