Former President Jimmy Carter waded yet into another current political event, blasting the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance ruling and characterizing it as stupid a move as it made years ago in a similar case.
Last week, justices abolished a 10-year cap that had stood on individual campaign donations to federal candidates in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. A similarly decided case in 2010, Citizens United v. FEC, removed limits on what corporations and unions could spend on independent campaigns.
Mr. Carter decried the court, saying the judicial and legislative tone had experienced a “sea change” since his days in the White House — and that the changes were hardly for the better.
“There was a spirit of harmony there, friendship [in my days],” he told Politico in an interview. “All of these things are gone, primarily due to a stupid decision that the Supreme Court made on Citizens United and that they exacerbated this past week with another ruling.”
Mr. Carter cautioned the country to watch out — more negative political campaigns are in the works.
“And this massive infusion of almost unrestricted money going into the political campaign,” he said, “a lot of it is spent just on negative commercials to tear down the reputation of your opponent and that polarization that occurs, that didn’t exist when I ran for office.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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