Good Monday morning here at the blog that probably needs a name and description change. For another weekend, I guess.

What is important is the beginning of my second week at Clean Energy Works. I meant to get some pictures of my surrounding areas at the office, but there isn't exactly a ton of time to walk around. Suffice to say that I am literally right across the street from the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building, at 9th and Pennsylvania. The hours are long, but it is like a campaign atmosphere, so everyone is fun and young. Although I am the youngest, as I seemingly always am.

To the main story of the day, something that we may see finally come to a close today, after months of waiting. This is actually something that the lawyer at LCV was bringing up in staff meetings way back when I first started working there, thinking that there would be answers in later last year. Well, hopefully today.

(If you don't want all of the background info, scroll down to the bold line for the wrapup. The background is interesting, however.)

In the extremely boring (yet, equally important) world of campaign finance, there are a couple of very important words, such as "hard money" and "soft money". Any of you who pay some attention to politics may remember back in 2002, when a guy named John McCain teamed with Russ Feingold to pass a bill eliminating soft money. What that did was prevent unregulated contributions to political parties, meaning that if you donated to a party, the money had to be designated toward something, thereby limiting the amount you could contribute. No longer could there be money for "vote building".

Now, the organizations that handle soft money are called "527's", specifically after the section of the tax code they are designated as. These organizations are not allowed to engage in any sort of activity which promotes or attacks a candidate in any way. In addition, McCain-Feingold created the "stand by your ad" provision, which is where we get the, "I am Jane Smith and I approve this ad."

Quickly: in their efforts to skirt all of this, a lot of organizations are actually many organizations loosely tied together, including the 527, a 501(c)(3) and a 501(c)(4). That's not as important, but just know that there's lobbying and elections activity involved. Confused yet?

Well, here is what is happening now. You may remember a movie, highly critical of then-Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton, released during the 2008 presidential primary. A conservative group, Citizens United, produced the ad and planned to air commercials promoting it. One thing you have to know about election law is that timing is very important. The FEC ruled that these ads was basically campaign ads, given their timing, and said that Citizens United, an incorporated entity that takes corporate money, could only use limited, disclosed contributions to fund the ads.

Citizens United sued and here we are.

The biggest worry here is that the Supreme Court will not rule narrowly. Instead, it could change a more than 100-year old law that some argue limits the free speech of corporations. Obviously, the knee-jerk reaction there is, "corporations aren't individuals and therefore don't have free speech." Well, that isn't exactly true. In fact, corporations are treated exactly like individuals, all the way down to their real-life vote. Which is why we come back to the question: "is money speech?"

We've been waiting sometime for this ruling to come down. Possibly this week we'll find out. Should the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States - welcome to acronym city) rule that yes, corporations can spend freely, well, watch out. If you think 2008 was free-spending, that will seems like nickel and dime. There is reason the DNC supports the law as it is currently written, even though it currently has way more money and a president better at fundraising. Simply put, Big Oil has more money than Labor. Trade unions, lobbyists, you name it, will be able to take whatever they want from corporations and spend it freely. Money will change hands at a rate never seen before.

That is obviously a scary proposition both for Democrats and for anyone who hates seeing campaign ads. Also remember, most of the really bad, scathing ads, are done by just the type of groups that would be getting more money. We might have to start adding movie-like ratings to them. Okay, that was a joke, but you get the idea.

If there is one positive to this, it comes with some of the little things. Say your advocacy group is running an IEC (Independent Expenditure Campaign), in which the group is running its own campaign for an issue, and you want to get the local Dominoes to donate pizzas. Well, right now, that wouldn't be allowed, because it is technically a contribution. Under new law, however, eat away.

Interestingly, yet extremely wonky stuff, I know. Sorry, "wonkdom" is basically the where the sausage is made. It's when things get deep into the weeds. But, if one day I am going to be really working campaigns, this is stuff I need to understand. It's why I'm glad I made friends with the lawyer at LCV. Plus hey, if the SCOTUS changes these laws, think of it this way: the money you spend at the gas pump will be more important to candidates than the $20 you donate directly to them.

I'll throw up some more links when I get to the office (soonish). Later y'all.