This is a repost of one that I feel got very short shrift, considering it's based on original reporting of data not routinely compiled by the FEC.

Yesterday's ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States opens the floodgates of corporate donations into politics. It means that corporate donations will soon soar beyond any levels previously seen. And those donations are primarily used to support pro-business Republican candidates.

Although the court also lifted the 20-year-old ban on labor union donations, the disparity in the two groups' spending power means that corporations are likely to outspend labor organizations far beyond any levels seen before.

The chart below, which I made using figures supplied from a special database search prepared at my request by the Federal Elections Commission (comparing ALL corporate donations against ALL labor organization donations by year from 1999-2009), shows how corporate donations far outstripped labor donations in all but one year of the past decade. Only in 2008 did labor donations exceed corporate donations, when labor donated over $182 million, compared to corporate donations totaling nearly $168 million. It isn't hard to see how George W. Bush got re-elected in 2004, when corporate donations topped $184 million, nearly 50% more than labor's $123 million.

*2009 data as of Aug. 2009



So as the impoverished masses who once donated to elect President Obama become poorer and poorer and devastated unions shrink in influence and ability to make campaign donations, guess who will fill the void to finance our political campaigns. That's right: corporations.

And that means that Democrats will be running to the corporate well almost as much as Republicans. Which, in turn, means that the platforms of both parties will swing more pro-business-- more to the Right.

Unless something is done to blunt the effect of the ruling, this Supreme Court has just condemned our politics to the nuclear winter of Fox News and corporate influence. Well, crap. Here comes Massachusetts fueled on corporate Nitro. Here comes the new Dark Ages.