We knew things like this would be happening, and it's totally out of hand:
http://www.sfgate.com/...
A group fighting Richmond's proposed Soda Tax has filed a lawsuit- not to get the proposition off the ballot, but to avoid revealing its major political donors on mailed flyers, as required by the city's law.
They claim being forced to reveal donors violates their right to free speech. I find this infuriating- individual citizens are being arrested for wearing masks to #OWS protests, but- with enough money, corporations (or the 1%) can have complete anonymity with their speech. The double standard is sickening.
One wonders who else (besides the obvious beverage companies) does not want their identity revealed. The Koch brothers? Karl Rove and his SuperPACs? Would it cause a major fiasco if it were revealed how heavily major national political heavy hitters were donating to politics on a local city level? (Answer: possibly...)
The other thing to consider- Richmond basically has no recourse, as long as Citizen's United stands. The Supreme Court will certainly agree with the appeal, and lower courts are obligated to follow the legal precedence it has already set. We may as well throw our existing campaign finance laws to the wind- even if they could be applied, the FEC isn't bothering to enforce them anyway.
What's to be done? The one approach that has the slimmest chance of working is a Constitutional Amendment that declares corporations to not be people... and even if the House and Senate shift Democratic in the next election, that's a very long shot. Especially with all the anonymous money the opposition can throw against it.
The longer shot is a more liberal (or at least more sane) Supreme Court overturning their decision. But that possibility is years and years away, requiring constant Democratic presidents to appoint judges- and may never come, now that the 1% has the ability to anonymously funnel their unlimited funds to every state and local election they desire.
The Founding Fathers hated corporations. This can not be the Freedom of Speech they intended.