CITIZENS UNITED VS. FEC

Court ruling shows faith in the electorate

Is democracy in peril? That's the conclusion of many political operatives and campaign finance reformers after Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. FEC, which removed some restrictions on corporate participation in political campaigns. In fact, the opposite is true (Star Tribune, Jan. 22).

Unless one believes more voices and more speech is "chaos," as one professor said, or prefers elections in which the political parties and the candidates they force upon us have more ability to control the information the public receives, as one GOP activist put it, then the court's decision is a big victory for robust and open debate.

Furthermore, corporations -- which are really just associations of people -- do not speak with one voice. They are large and small, for-profit and nonprofit, and often have widely diverging interests.

Refreshingly, the court's decision trusts the people themselves to make responsible judgments about the information they receive. In an age of increasing regulation and paternalism, that is a message some don't want you to hear.

JASON ADKINS, MINNEAPOLIS;

STAFF ATTORNEY, MINNESOTA CHAPTER, INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE, WHICH FILED A FRIEND-OF-THE-COURT BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF CITIZENS UNITED

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I'm listening, but I don't hear it. After the Supreme Court decision that struck down two of its own precedents in order to permit more corporate contributions to election campaigns, where are all the protests from conservatives about activist judges?

JEFF NAYLOR, MINNEAPOLIS

MADE IN THE USA

We've traded away our manufacturing base

The Jan. 26 article on "Made in USA" legislation brought up a problem in our country that our political elite have dodged for many decades. Our entire manufacturing base has been traded away to the Third World and in its place we have debt and dependence.

One of the first actions our republic took was to implement tariffs on imported goods. Tariffs funded our entire nation for the most part until the income tax was enacted.

Since we abandoned the protection of our jobs, manufacturing has shrunk below government- and service-sector jobs. There may be some pain caused by domestic production, but it by no means outweighs foreign dependence. You build a strong nation with production, not with consumption; our founders knew that.

BRADY ERNST, DASSEL, MINN.

SEN. AL FRANKEN

A critic finds a proposal that he can support

I, like many other conservatives in Minnesota, was embarrassed by the election of Al Franken to the U.S. Senate. His election only added to the national opinion that we were a little out of whack when it came to politics in this state.

But I must admit that the job creation legislation he is proposing is exactly what this country needs. Small business incentives will be the real stimulus we need to return people to work and to get the economy back on track and will cost a fraction of what we paid to bail out the financial community.

STEVE HOLM, MAHTOMEDI