On the recordJanuary 21, 2015
this week marks a somewhat dark milestone, which is the 5-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's, in my view, reprehensible decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. This was some fete of activism by the conservative bloc of the Supreme Court. It overturned the laws of Congress, it overturned the will of the American people, and it gave wildly outside influence over our elections to corporations and big-money interests, creating what one newspaper in Kentucky called a ``tsunami of slime.'' Well, 5 years on and the evidence is in. The evidence is in our elections, where this dam burst of outside cash that has wiped out previous campaign spending records, and the evidence is in this Chamber, where we once had a thriving bipartisan conversation on climate change, and instead of that we have now been reduced to this Keystone XL Pipeline bill--a show of force from the fossil fuel industry and virtual silence from the other side of the aisle on climate change.…
