Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., testified before a Senate Committee on Rules and Administration hearing Tuesday, criticizing the Supreme Court's decision to ease restrictions on the amount of money corporations, unions and non-profit organizations can spend to support political candidates.
In a 5-4 decision in January, the Supreme Court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said companies can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to produce and run their own campaign ads in support of a political candidate or issue.
The Court also reversed a provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that said union and corporate-paid issue ads could not air during the closing days of an election campaign.
"The Supreme Court has issued a decision inflating the speech rights of large faceless corporations to the same level of hard-working everyday Americans," Kerry said in his testimony.
He added, "In doing so, the Court has struck at the very heart of our democracy, a democracy in which corporations already have too much influence."
Kerry went so far in his testimony as to suggest that Congress would need to introduce a constitutional amendment "to make it clear once and for all that corporations do not have the same free speech rights as individuals."
Meanwhile, Feingold, one of the authors of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill impacted by the ruling, called the Court's decision a "tragic error."
"By acting in such an extreme and unjustified manner, the Court has badly damaged its own integrity," Feingold said. "More important, it has harmed our democracy in ways that may not be fully understood today, but will likely become clear over the next few election cycles."
He said that the Court's "terrible decision deserves as robust a response as possible. Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake."
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June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.