William C. Shelton (The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.) Congress may be spinning its wheels, but last month the Supreme Court passed historic legislation, authorizing corporations to buy elections. It ruled that corporations may spend as much as they want to elect obedient candidates or defeat disobedient ones.

I call it "legislation" because the Court overreached to decide matters that were not before it. Their decision was much broader that what the plaintiffs asked them to consider. And they overthrew a century's worth of campaign finance law, including two of their own precedents.

In the words of Justice John Paul Stevens' dissent, " five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law."

The decision in this case, United Citizens v. the Federal Election Commission, may be the most momentous since Brown v. the Board of Education outlawed segregation in 1954. And it will be as damaging to democracy as Brown was constructive.

It makes a mockery of equal justice before the law. While there are still limits on individuals' campaign contributions, there are now none for corporations.

Million-dollar contributions to single congressional campaigns are a trivial expense for corporate giants. Especially when legislation can boost or reduce their profits by billions.

Would you like to see a more rational energy policy? Exxon Mobil's revenues last year were $373 billion. Less predatory banking practices? CitiGroup's revenues were $159 billion and Bank of America's, $119 billion. Broader, better, and less costly healthcare? UnitedHealth Group's revenues were $75 billion.

Few argue that large contributors do not have preferential access to elected officials. But as Justice Stevens wrote, "the difference between selling a vote and selling access is a matter of degree, not kind."

And now giant corporations can buy legislators' votes without spending a dime. They need only imply that they will spend whatever is necessary to keep a compliant incumbent in office or elect a more compliant challenger. The public will never know.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg identified another chilling implication. She asked what would stop a "mega corporation" owned by a foreign government from pouring money into U.S. campaigns. The United Citizens' attorney reluctantly answered that Congress might be able to pass a law against it. Of course an aggrieved foreign corporation could then appeal the law up to this same Supreme Court.

The lengths to which the Court's majority went to make new law that suits its radical ideology is as appalling as their hypocrisy in doing so. United Citizens had only asked for a ruling on whether the McCain-Feingold Act applied to a pay-for-view cable video about a presidential candidate, and whether the first amendment protected them from revealing their contributors. But two months after oral arguments, the majority vastly expanded the issues, ordering the parties to hastily file briefs on whether the Court should overrule two of its prior decisions that had affirmed campaign finance limits.

For decades, Senators who call themselves conservative have grilled Supreme Court nominees on whether they were "strict constructions" who exercised "judicial restraint," honoring the doctrine of "stare decisis"-to stand by things decided. They rejected any nominee for whom they could find evidence to the contrary.

In his 2005 confirmation hearings, Chief Justice Roberts said, "Adherence to precedent promotes even handedness, promotes fairness, promotes stability and predictability." But disregarding precedent is exactly what he did, while the more "liberal" minority were the judicial minimalists.

The two previous Chief Justices, both Republicans, were more skeptical about corporations. William Rehnquist wrote that corporations were "creatures of the law," capable of amassing wealth but due none of the rights of voters. In contrast, this Court's majority opinion described a corporation as an "association of citizens" that deserves the same free-speech rights as an individual.

The Constitutions was written for "We the people." It makes no mention of corporations. By granting corporate charters, states already give shareholders special privileges, such as immunity from prosecution resulting from their corporations' misdeeds. Corporations themselves deserve none of the other rights accorded to citizens except for freedom of the press. But writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy insisted that corporations were victims of discrimination.

The fact that these matters could even come before the Court rests on the fiction that corporations are people. I've written about the bizarre way in which this entered the law (http://somervillenews.typepad.com/the_somerville_news/2009/08/change-you-say.html).

While young people give their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," the elimination of corporate campaign spending limits may undermine the Constitution itself. The only option left to protect and defend it is to pass a constitutional amendment eliminating corporate personhood. It's a difficult challenge, but it would force every state and federal legislator to declare whether his or her masters are the corporations or the people.