CNN's Costello Bewails 'Big Advantage' Court Gave 'Wealthy' in Campaign Finance Ruling

On the 2 April 2004 edition of CNN Newsroom, Carol Costello decried the Supreme Court's latest decision underlining that political donations are a form of free speech: "You know, these rulings continue to surprise me – only because so many Americans are concerned about the money factor...They think it's a real problem, and these kinds of rulings seem to only exacerbate those problems."

Costello brought on liberal CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin and asked, "Doesn't that give wealthy donors a big advantage?" Toobin twice emphasize the left-of-center opposition to this ruling and the previous Citizen United decision in 2010:

JEFFREY TOOBIN: ...The heart of all these decisions, like Citizens United; the McCutcheon case – which is what the name of this case is – is that giving money to a political campaign is an act of speech, which the government can regulate in only very limited circumstances. Now obviously, a lot of people disagree....

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote today's opinion...said a lot of people are unhappy about all the money in campaigns....Now, the four dissenting justices, led by Justice Stephen Breyer, said, in effect, that's all a bunch of nonsense; that speech is not money; that money is not speech; that this should be regulated. But they only have four votes, not five.