On April 2, the Supreme Court threw out a thirty-eight-year-old provision of campaign finance law, clearing the way for individuals to make an unlimited number of political donations. Depending on which partisan broadcast outlet you get your news from, the McCutcheon v. FEC decision either rescued the First Amendment from the suffocating vice grip of government regulation or murdered democracy as we know it. “They’re not into freedom of speech,” said Rush Limbaugh of the ruling’s liberal critics. “They want to rig every game.” “This is all about freedom?” thundered Al Sharpton on MSNBC. “Freedom for who? The 1 percent?” Sitting in a soundproof glass studio the day after the ruling, radio personality Michael Smerconish has a different take. Rather than pronounce the ruling all good or all bad, he wrestles with its subtler implications.
