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Obama Criticizes Supreme Court Decision

   VOA News 23 January 2010
   President Barack Obama (file photo)

Photo: AP

   President Barack Obama (file photo)

   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.
   Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.

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