‘The Moral High Ground’: John McCain Calls ‘Citizens United’ “Worst Decision Ever”

Speaking before an audience of British university students, US Sen. John McCain slammed a Supreme Court decision in which the justices ruled that money is free speech and corporations are people entitled to spend unlimited amounts influencing elections.

Addressing the University of Oxford’s student union on Wednesday, Sen. McCain (R-AZ) called Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission the Supreme Court’s “worst decision ever.”

Affirming that corporations are people endowed with constitutional free speech rights, and calling money a form of free speech, the justices ruled 5-4 in January, 2010 that corporations and unions have the right to influence the outcome of US elections by making unlimited independent contributions to groups called Super PACs that produce and air political ads.

“The system is now so, so terrible,” McCain lamented, slamming campaigns’ reliance on corporate donations. “[The Supreme Court] said money is free speech. Since when is money free speech? Money is money.”

It’s not the first time McCain has spoken out against the controversial ruling. In January, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, a longtime advocate of campaign finance reform and author of the ill-fated McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act, called Citizens United “outrageous” and predicted “huge scandals” resulting from “this huge flood of money.”

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