In his remarks on the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, President Obama alluded [1] to his displeasure (which he hasn’t exactly been keeping secret [2]) with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. Now the GOP is crying “litmus test” [3]:
Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) invoked Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’s name in a Senate floor speech Tuesday warning Obama not to nominate someone who would be an automatic vote against corporate interests. He made it clear such a nomination could provoke a GOP filibuster.
“The big corporation might have the right law and facts in a particular case,” said Kyl, who noted that Roberts in his own confirmation hearing said that in a dispute between a “big guy and little guy” he would vote for whoever had the law behind him.
“You don’t go on to the bench [saying], ‘I’m always going to be against the big guy,’ ” said Kyl.
Kyl’s straw man argument not only misconstrues Obama’s words, but shows how out of touch his party has become with the American people. A People For poll [4] in February found that a full 78% of Americans—from across the political spectrum— believe that corporations should be limited in how much they can spend to influence elections, with 70% believing that corporations already have too much influence. And asked whether President Obama should nominate a Supreme Court justice who supports limiting corporate spending in elections, 69% said yes.
And just this week, a candidate running on a platform that included a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United won a resounding victory [5] in a congressional special election in Florida.
Given that kind of evidence, Senator Kyl might want to rethink his decision to make himself a champion of corporate interests over the rights of ordinary Americans.