Campaign finance is a hot topic right now! Not to mention a very relevant one as we head towards November.

The New York Times published an article yesterday stating that the amount of money spent on television campaign advertisements by outside interest groups has more than doubled from what was spent in 2006. The article points not only to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling as a main reason for the more lax campaign finance regulations, but also to an array of other legal developments that have led to less regulation and less restriction regarding campaign financing.

NPR’s Fresh Air devoted Thursday’s show to the discussion of the new world of campaign finance that has been created as a result of the Citizens United decision. Terry Gross interviewed Peter Stone, of The Center for Public Integrity, Kenneth Vogel of Politico and Lee Fang of the liberal-leaning ThinkProgress to discuss new organizations that have been created since the ruling in order to finance advertisements for campaigns across the country.

The Oakland mayoral race recently had its own campaign finance drama. Oakland mayoral candidates Jean Quan and Rebecca Kaplan were denied their request to tighten rules on campaign finance spending before the Nov. 2 election. The two Oakland City Council members made this request to the Oakland City Council after the Sacramento-based Coalition for a Safer California announced it had exceeded the spending threshold of $95,000 allowed for an independent expenditure committee, in support of an Oakland mayoral candidate. Quan and Kaplan have alleged that Oakland mayoral candidate Don Perata worked with the coalition to get the spending cap broken. Perata has denied this allegation, but admitted on Thursday to exceeding the spending ceiling. Perata says that City Attorney John Russo told him that the spending cap had already been broken. Russo denies having said this. Once the spending cap is broken, mayoral candidates are free to spend more than the voluntary spending limit of $379,000. Read the complete story from the Oakland Tribune.

Join The Club and panelists Bob Edgar, Lawrence McQuillan and Jesse Choper to discuss this polemic topic, delving into the political controversies and the widely unpopular Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. This program will take place on Monday, October 11 at 6PM at The Club’s SF office.

By Camille Koué

Yesterday, the first Monday in October, the Supreme Court started a new session. The court will be hearing an array of fascinating and controversial cases, and everyone will be interested to see how the most female Supreme Court of all time will vote on such heavy matters at lethal injection and lifetime prison sentences for juveniles.

But before such matters could even be considered, a letter was delivered to the United States Congress on Monday asking that one of the court's most controversial rulings of this year, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, be overturned with an amendment to the constitution.

The letter was submitted to Congress by FreeSpeechForPeople.org, a campaign devoted to the cause of reversing the ruling via a constitutional amendment.

The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 5-4 ruling permits corporations and unions to promote and finance the campaigns of electoral candidates up until election day. The ruling overturned longstanding campaign finance rules and regulations, and it elicited outrage in many and applause from many others, dividing the country largely along party lines.

The idea of “corporate personhood” was protested across the country by liberal think tanks and politicians. President Obama called the ruling “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

Conservative think tanks and politicians applauded the court for overturning what they saw as years of unconstitutional obstruction to free speech. Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader at the time, stated, “For too long, some in this country have been deprived of full participation in the political process. With today's monumental decision, the Supreme Court took an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights of these groups...”

This was the first Supreme Court case heard by Justice Sonia Sotomayer and the first Supreme Court case argued by then-solicitor general and now Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. So the issues of this ruling touch even the newest on the court.

On Monday, October 11 The Commonwealth Club will have its own debate on this topic. The superb panel of Bob Edgar, president and CEO of Common Cause, Lawrence McQuillan, director of business and economic studies at the Pacific Research Institute, and constitutional law expert Jesse Choper, Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at UC Berkeley, will take on the question of the constitutionality of the recent ruling and discuss what is really electing our political leaders, money or merit?