Senate Democrats said they may try to limit election spending by government contractors and US units of foreign companies after last month’s Supreme Court decision that lifted restrictions on corporate political money.
Other proposals include boosting requirements to disclose corporate campaign spending and requiring shareholders’ approval for the expenditures.
The high court’s 5-4 ruling on Jan. 21 reversed decades of congressional efforts to limit corporate cash in political campaigns. The majority, invoking the Constitution’s free-speech clause, said companies and unions can use their general treasury funds to buy ads supporting or opposing candidates.
“This terrible decision deserves as robust a response as possible,” Senator Russell Feingold said yesterday at a Senate Rules Committee hearing in Washington. The Wisconsin Democrat cowrote a 2002 campaign-finance law that was partially overturned by the decision.
Senator Bob Bennett of Utah, the top Republican on the rules panel, applauded the court’s ruling.
“All Americans know they’re free to speak their minds without having to get permission from the government,” he said.
Committee Chairman Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said he was drafting legislation to try to limit the decision’s impact.
“If Congress fails to act, our country will be faced with big, moneyed interests spending, or threatening to spend, millions on ads against those who dare to stand up to them,” Schumer said.
Schumer probably would need 60 votes to get a measure through the Senate. Democrats will control 59 seats when Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown is sworn in.
Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, who bucked a majority of his party when he cosponsored the 2002 law with Feingold, won’t back efforts to address the court decision, said his spokeswoman, Brooke Buchanan. McCain was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not