Obama Criticizes Supreme Court Campaign Finance Decision

25 January 2010

U.S. President Barack Obama says a Supreme Court ruling this week on campaign financing was a "huge victory for special interests," and he vowed to develop a legislative response.

In a 5-4 vote Thursday, the high court struck down long-standing limits on corporate and union spending in U.S. political campaigns. The ruling overturned a decades-old ruling that said the government could prohibit corporations and unions from using money from their treasuries to pay for campaign ads.

The court's opinion for the majority says the old campaign finance law violated constitutional free-speech rights.

In his weekly address Saturday, President Obama sharply criticized the ruling, saying it strikes at "democracy itself." He said it "opens the floodgates" for an unlimited amount of money that gives "special interest lobbyists new leverage" to persuade elected officials to vote their way or punish those who do not.

The president says he has instructed his staff to immediately begin working with members of Congress to develop a bipartisan response to the decision.