The Justices of 1907 saw what unfettered corporate political speech meant; the Justices of 2010 never have.
I simply disagree - legal interpretation of the extent of political free speech rights (whether individual or corporate) in 1907 were extremely limited in comparison to today (and had been considerably expanded in comparison to earlier periods in American history).
In other words, you could spend as much money as you wanted but the
manner in which you could spend your money in promoting ideas was quite limited.
I know where you're coming from - the idea that corporations had rights protected by the Constitution is a Lochnerian concept. That being said, the weakness in the logic promoted by those against this decision is the assumption that corporations are not already deeply involved in political speech, if not driving it entirely. Lest I return to the issue of Obama's campaign contributions as a classic problem with this theory.
Moreover, present campaign finance laws inevitably choose which corporations have enhanced political speech rights and which ones don't, not to mention encouraging corporations to find loopholes in the laws to circumvent such restrictions. I honestly believe that this would even occur even in a highly regulated system which removed all money from politics. So, we'll end up trying the other way - corporations can spend whatever they want, but will end up having to disclose information about who created the advertising and hopefully in the laws written, disclose all those persons behind the scenes.
