This, My Friends, Is Huge!

The Supreme Court has agreed to review a case that may give it the opportunity to overturn Buckley v. Valeo, the 1976 Supreme Court decision that -- erroneously, many think -- largely found campaign spending limits to be unconstitutional. It's the case that essentially equated money with speech, a problematic notion for a fair and just democracy. It really speaks to the heart of whether economic power should be easily and legally translatable into political power, as has been the trend in recent decades.

Many of us -- perhaps most -- don't believe that money equals speech. Money is property, and the true nature of American democracy is (or certainly should be) that our voices should be equally heard at the ballot box and in the halls of government regardless of financial resources.

For us democracy-reform nerds, this is a big day. Expect oral arguments in January or February. Will be interesting to see where Roberts and O'Connor's replacement come down on this.

Here's the Times story (lead story today!). And here's the National Voting Rights Institute, the great nonprofit that has been working on this and related issues for a decade.

UPDATE: When I wrote above that the "trend in recent decades" is toward money buying political power, I should have said that is in terms of the institutionalizing of political campaign funding and lobbying into a legal framework. Money has always bought power here, though it's a bit shocking when it's an accepted part of an allegedly transparent system.