This week marked the anniver­sary of the Cit­i­zens Unit­ed deci­sion, which exposed Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy to increas­ing dom­i­na­tion by the coun­try’s very rich­est and most reac­tionary fig­ures — mod­ern heirs to those ​“male­fac­tors of great wealth” con­demned by the great Repub­li­can Theodore Roo­sevelt — so it is worth recall­ing the false promise made by the jus­tice who wrote the major­i­ty opin­ion in that case.

During the past three election cycles, outside groups spent about $1 billion total on Senate races, of which $485 million came from undisclosed sources. In the 11 most competitive Senate races in 2014, almost 60 percent of the spending by "independent" groups came from those murky places, and the winners of those races benefited from $171 million of such spending.

Jus­tice Antho­ny Kennedy mas­ter­mind­ed the Supreme Court’s Jan. 21, 2010 deci­sion to undo a cen­tu­ry of pub­lic-inter­est reg­u­la­tion of cam­paign expen­di­tures in the name of ​“free speech.” He had every rea­son to know how dam­ag­ing to demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues and pub­lic integri­ty that deci­sion would prove to be.

Once billed as a ​“mod­er­ate con­ser­v­a­tive,” Kennedy is a lib­er­tar­i­an for­mer cor­po­rate attor­ney from Sacra­men­to, who toiled in his father’s scan­dal-rid­den lob­by­ing law firm, ​“influ­enc­ing” Cal­i­for­nia leg­is­la­tors, before he ascend­ed to the bench with the help of his friend Ronald Reagan.

While guid­ing Cit­i­zens Unit­ed through the court on behalf of the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s bil­lion­aire over­seers, it was Kennedy who came up with a dec­o­ra­tive fig leaf of justification:

With the advent of the Inter­net, prompt dis­clo­sure of expen­di­tures can pro­vide share­hold­ers and cit­i­zens with the infor­ma­tion need­ed to hold cor­po­ra­tions and elect­ed offi­cials account­able for their posi­tions. This trans­paren­cy enables the elec­torate to make informed deci­sions and give prop­er weight to dif­fer­ent speak­ers and messages.

As Jane May­er’s superb new book Dark Mon­ey: The Hid­den His­to­ry of the Bil­lion­aires Behind the Rise of the Rad­i­cal Right reveals in excru­ci­at­ing but fas­ci­nat­ing detail, Kennedy’s asser­tion about the Inter­net insur­ing dis­clo­sure and account­abil­i­ty was noth­ing but a lit­tle heap of hap­py horse-prod­uct. ​“Inde­pen­dent” expen­di­tures from super-rich right-wing donors have over­whelmed the oppo­nents of their cho­sen can­di­dates, pro­mot­ing a durable Repub­li­can takeover of Con­gress — often through the deploy­ment of false adver­tis­ing and false-flag organizations.

Late last year, Kennedy con­fessed that his vaunt­ed ​“trans­paren­cy” is ​“not work­ing the way it should,” a fee­ble excuse since he had every rea­son to know from the begin­ning that his pro­fessed expec­ta­tion of ​“prompt dis­clo­sure” of all polit­i­cal dona­tions was absurd­ly unrealistic.

The Cit­i­zens Unit­ed deba­cle led direct­ly to the Repub­li­can takeover of the Sen­ate as well as the House. Last week, the Bren­nan Cen­ter for Jus­tice released a new study show­ing that ​“dark mon­ey” – that is, dona­tions whose ori­gin remains secret from news orga­ni­za­tions and vot­ers — has more than dou­bled in Sen­ate races dur­ing the past six years, from $105 mil­lion to $226 mil­lion in 2014.

Dur­ing the past three elec­tion cycles, out­side groups spent about $1 bil­lion total on Sen­ate races, of which $485 mil­lion came from undis­closed sources. In the 11 most com­pet­i­tive Sen­ate races in 2014, almost 60 per­cent of the spend­ing by ​“inde­pen­dent” groups came from those murky places, and the win­ners of those races ben­e­fit­ed from $171 mil­lion of such spending.

In elec­tions gone by, when anony­mous smear leaflets would appear in local races — fund­ed by nobody knew whom — polit­i­cal oper­a­tives would shake their heads and mut­ter about ​“sew­er money.”

Today we can thank Jus­tice Kennedy, who was either poor­ly informed or will­ful­ly igno­rant, for turn­ing Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy into a stink­ing open sew­er. What a legacy.