I still have not reviewed carefully all 185 pages, but the US Supreme Court issued the decision in Citizens United today by a 5-4 conservative majority vote and a lenthy dissent by John Paul Stevens. That means one thing: freedom and the First Anendment won! It appears corporations will no longer be banned from involvement in federal elections. More later……… Read More

Here is my executive summary on the Citizens United case and a sad prediction.

Citizens United, a nonprofit corporation (formed originally by my friend Floyd Brown) released during the last Presidential campaign a documentary movie about Hillary Clinton that was critical of her. It sought declaratory and injunctive relief in Federal Court on whether it would be subject to criminal penalties from the Federal Election Commission for distributing the movie. CU lost at the District Court level but appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts had previously decided some cases that marginalized the broad sweep of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which placed additional restrictions of First Amendment freedoms in a Federal election context, most notably, the Wisconsin Right to Life decision, which scaled back McCain-Feingold to allow for unlimited "issue advocacy" by a corporation during an election campaign.… Read More

8:30 am Update: Here is the Fox News take. See Jim Lacy’s blog post here on FR as well.

From the AP (click for the link)…

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on business efforts to influence federal campaigns.

By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said companies can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

It leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.

Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an… Read More

Earlier today, the Senate Democrats passed SB 810, which would mandate government run healthcare. The Democrats in Sacramento aren’t listening. The people don’t want a government run healthcare system. The lack of support for the federal proposal and the election results in Massachusetts, less than 48 hours ago, should indicate the public’s desire to have government stay out of their healthcare decisions.

SB 810 is far more intrusive than the federal program. And, it comes at a time when California is facing a $20 billion deficit and cuts are being made to education, healthcare, and public safety. The Legislature should not even contemplate implementing a program that will ration healthcare and cost over $200 billion annually – more than double the California State Budget.

This is the plan for you, if you want the compassion of the IRS and the efficiency of the DMV.… Read More

Wednesday was a great day all around. Not only did Scott Brown win an incredible victory in Massachusetts, but I saw polling numbers that show Tom Harman is leading all potential opponents to be our Republican nominee for Attorney General. Like many of you, I believe the tide is turning in our country and our state. Tom has always been a great supporter of mine, an excellent conservative particularly when it comes to holding the line on the budget and strengthening our criminal justice system and an aggressive fundraiser. This new survey of 500 registered Republican likely voters (see below) shows decisively that Harman is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination.

These results, along with his support from leading “3 Strikes and You’re Out” champion Mike Reynolds, are extremely strong indicators about the strength of his campaign and our opportunity to put this seat back in the GOP column – particularly when you consider that these same 500 Republicans said they would be more likely to support a… Read More

Yesterday U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina held a ten minute press availability in Sacramento, following the upset win of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts on Tuesday. Because I am in Sacramento, I went over the handy Flash Flip Camera, and was able to tape the entire thing. So here’s your chance to see what one of these press avails is like, and of course to hear the candidate in her own words, as opposed to just a snippet or two in variou MSM stories…

… Read More

For those with a chunk of time to watch what was an amazing speech, here is the video of Orange County Republican Party Chairman Scott Baugh giving his speech about the future of the GOP and of the nation, filmed last Monday night by yours truly… Big kudos to Rhonda Rohrabacher for getting it up online!

Chairman Scott Baugh from OCGOP on Vimeo.

From today’s WSJ Political Diary E-mail… … Read More