A serious challenge to campaign laws

[Commentary] Advocates of meaningful campaign finance laws are waiting with great trepidation for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in a case that challenges a 60-year-old ban on corporate contributions to candidates for federal office. Five of the nine justices already have established a willingness to chip away at restraints on campaign spending. This case, Citizens United vs. FEC, provides them with an opportunity to declare that the ban on corporate contributions is unconstitutional - which could dramatically increase the already formidable clout of special interests to influence congressional and presidential elections. "In our view, it would make an intolerable situation much worse," said Nick Nyhart, president and CEO of Public Campaign, a nonprofit group that has been pushing for public financing of campaigns. At issue is a documentary critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton that the conservative group Citizens United wanted produced for the 2008 presidential primary. The ideological group, which receives corporate funding, had wanted to pay a cable television consortium $1.2 million to allow subscribers to download the movie for free "on demand." Under the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law of 2002, corporate-bankrolled television advertisements are prohibited just before an election.