Common Cause and other opponents of the FCC's Citizen's United decision Tuesday called for a rally on the Supreme Court steps Feb. 23.
That follows the High Court's decision last Friday to set aside a Montana ban on corporate political spending, which runs counter to the Supreme's decision in Citizens United that corporations and unions could spend unlimited amounts of money on electioneering communications, protected by a First Amendment right to political speech, the court said.
The Montana Supreme Court had upheld a state ban on corporate political spending, but the Supreme's stayed that decision until an appeal can be filed to the High Court.
But Common Cause and the other groups were buoyed by a statement by Justice's Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer that though they supported the stay, an appeal would give the court a chance to rethink whether, "in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidate's allegiance," Citizen's United should continue to be law of the land. Justices Breyer and Ginsburg dissented from the Citizen's United decision, which was a 5-4 ruling.
Citizens United gave rise to the so-called Super PACS that have spent multiple millions of dollars on ads attacking and supporting GOP presidential candidates over the past few months.
According to the Sunlight Foundation, the top two PACs -- which support Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich -- have spent over $30 million, much of it on advertising and direct mail, with another 21 million spent by a collection of other PACs, with many tens of millions more raised but not yet spent.
