For all the fuss about Supreme Court nominations, very few Supreme Court decisions are actually remembered by history, and even fewer are notorious for getting it wrong. In fact, there are really only three: Dred Scott (1857), which upheld slavery; Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which upheld racial segregation; and Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), which upheld state anti-sodomy laws. It took the Civil War to overturn Dred Scott. Plessy v. Ferguson was reversed 58 years after it was issued (in the most famous Supreme Court case of all, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka). It took only 17 years for the court to decide, in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), that it had made a mistake, and to reverse Bowers v. Hardwick.

Any others? Well, Bush v. Gore, which decided the 2000 election, would certainly be on my list of disgraceful Supreme Court decisions, but the circumstances were so bizarre that they are unlikely to arise again. Conservatives hope the historical consensus about famously bad Supreme Court decisions will extend someday to Roe v. Wade (1973), the decision legalizing abortion. Liberals hope that someday the Lousy Decision Hall of Fame will include Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), which held that corporations (and unions) have the right to free speech under the First Amendment.

Already, Citizens United is probably the one Supreme Court decision since Roe that is despised by name, though these decisions are despised by different groups. For conservatives, Roe v. Wade has become shorthand for the profusion of new, judge-created “rights” in the 1960s and alleged liberal excess of all sorts. For liberals, Citizens United has come to represent the nefarious role of money in politics, which many feel has eroded if not destroyed our democracy. Money is blamed above all this year for Donald Trump, although Citizens United doesn't apply to him if, as is widely supposed, he is a human being and not a legal fiction. More generally, big business will always be bigger than small business, and rich people will always have more money than poor people. Should that entitle them to more influence on the political process? (A further complication is that rich companies are owned not by rich people, by and large, but by pension funds, which are holding the money on behalf of the middle class.)

‘Money isn't speech” and “corporations aren't people” are the mantras of Citizens United critics. Citizens United happens to be a group that wanted to distribute a documentary about Hillary Clinton. It had already been established, in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), that anyone has a First Amendment right to spend his or her own money advancing his or her own cause, including a candidacy for political office. Citizens United extended this right to legally created “persons” such as corporations and unions.

The First Amendment right of free speech is generally considered to be a liberal cause. So it's disappointing to see how quickly liberals abandon it when the speech is something they disagree with. Money isn't speech? Ridiculous. Of course it is. The very act of spending money sends a message, like “liking” something on Facebook. Also, it takes money to “speak.” It's precisely because people and organizations that have more money can speak more (more TV commercials, more lawn signs) and speak more loudly (perhaps a better class of political consultant) that the court's conclusion in Citizens United bothers people so much. At the same time, no amount of money automatically translates into a certain amount of influence over the political process. Arianna Huffington's husband spent almost $30 million in a futile attempt to win a Senate seat from California. He lost and today, despite his marriage to and divorce from Arianna Huffington, his views on anything don't carry a lot of weight. (“Not true, darling. Not true at all,” says Arianna. “I always consult with Michael before endorsing a Supreme Court nominee.”)