Despite President Obama’s State of the Union attack, Citizens United endures

The U.S. Capitol’s chambers are no strangers to violence, though fortunately the anniversary of the last canings has passed the sesquicentennial mark. It was only eight years ago, however, that then-President Barack Obama chose to go after U.S. Supreme Court justices in that arena.

The occasion was his first State of the Union address and the topic was Citizens United, a case the justices had decided in a 5-4 ruling a week earlier, dealing an uppercut to the campaign finance reform movement by ruling interest groups’ political spending is protected speech under the First Amendment.

The decision rocked politics, and Mr. Obama predicted it would “open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.”

In the first election after the ruling election spending did in fact soar, with cash in congressional races leaping 46 percent, and continuing to tick up in the years since.

But spending on presidential elections has actually dropped since the ruling, challenging the notion of runaway campaigns Mr. Obama predicted.

“I think the impact was enormously exaggerated by opponents of the decision right from the beginning,” said attorney Ted Olson who argued the case before the Supreme Court on behalf of the plaintiffs.