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Citizens United Was The Current Supreme Court’s Worst Ruling

WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 30: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, celebrating her 20th anniversary on the bench, is photographed in the East conference room at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Friday, August 30, 2013. (Photo by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty Images) | The Washington Post via Getty Images
WASHINGTON, DC — AUGUST 30: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, cel­e­brat­ing her 20th anniver­sary on the bench, is pho­tographed in the East con­fer­ence room at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Friday, August 30, 2013. (Photo by Nikki Kahn/​The Washington Post via Getty Images) | The Washington Post via Getty Images

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg expressed her extreme regret over sev­er­al of the cur­rent Court’s rul­ings in a wide-rang­ing inter­view pub­lished in The New Republic Sunday evening, includ­ing their reject­ing the com­merce clause of President Barack Obama’s health care law, and issu­ing a huge blow to the Voting Rights Act in their Shelby County v. Holder decision.

But the first Supreme Court rul­ing Ginsburg would send to the guil­lo­tine would be the Court’s deci­sion in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, giv­ing cor­po­ra­tions and unions the green light to give and spend unlim­it­ed sums of mon­ey on inde­pen­dent polit­i­cal activ­i­ty. “If there was one deci­sion I would over­rule,” Ginsburg told The New Republic, it would be Citizens United. “I think the notion that we have all the democ­ra­cy that mon­ey can buy strays so far from what our democ­ra­cy is sup­posed to be,” she said. Ginsburg said that the Court, in CItizens United as well as in the case of Shelby County, “should have respect­ed the leg­isla­tive judg­ment.” “Legislators know much more about elec­tions than the Court does. … I think mem­bers of the leg­is­la­ture, peo­ple who have to run for office, know the con­nec­tion between mon­ey and influ­ence on what laws get passed.” According to Ginsburg, things may have played out dif­fer­ent­ly had Justice Sandra Day O’Connor not retired so soon. She told The New Republic that O’Connor would have sided with the minor­i­ty on Citizens United, Shelby County, as well as the Court’s Hobby Lobby rul­ing. “I think she must be con­cerned about some of the court’s rul­ings, those that veer away from opin­ions she wrote,” Ginsburg said. Read it here: http://​www​.huff​in​g​ton​post​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​0​9​/​2​8​/​r​u​t​h​-​b​a​d​e​r​-​g​i​n​s​b​u​r​g​-​c​i​t​i​z​e​n​s​-​u​n​i​t​e​d​_​n​_​5​8​9​7​7​6​0​.​h​tml