KFTC Blog

Stevens: Second thoughts likely in Citizens United

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has said he expects the court has already had second thoughts about parts of its controversial Citizens United ruling that eased restrictions on corporate spending in political campaigns.

The sharply divided court ruled that independent spending by corporations does "not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption." Stevens, who dissented from that 2010 decision, said that at some point the court will have to issue an opinion "explicitly crafting an exception that will create a crack in the foundation" of that ruling.

Right now is a critical time for Kentuckians to stand up for clean water and for honest, effective enforcement of the laws that are supposed to protect our health and environment from corporate polluters.

Please join KFTC members and other Kentuckians in telling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stand strong for our health and water! Governor Beshear and the Kentucky Division of Water have systematically failed to enforce the Clean Water Act. The EPA must hold the line and do its job.

For a primary, yesterday and the weeks leading up to it were a pretty wild ride.  Here's the day "by the numbers"

2,980,009 - Current registered Voters in Kentucky

411,947 - Ballots cast in the Primary*

13.82% - Voter Turnout*

56,236 - Ballots cast in excess of the maximum (12%) turnout predicted by the KY Secretary of State's office.*

56 - Candidates responding to our candidate survey including 13 of 18 Congressional candidates

32 - Calls to that Attorney General's election fraud hotline

196 - Voters registered by KFTC earlier this year while we were mostly focused on citizen lobbying in the General Assembly.

23,513 - Page views on KentuckyElection.org in the month leading to the primary - a record that surpasses our traffic during even the busiest general election from past years. 

17,162 - Voter Guides distributed through mail or at community events in recent weeks. 

1.7 million - Times our voter mobilization advertisement was shown on Facebook to Kentuckians

5,200 - estimated number of KFTC voter mobilization calls to members and friends conducted at phone banks across the state. 

* Based on Unofficial State Board Results

Of course these numbers are skewed towards things that are easy to count and quantify.   There have been so many intangible, powerful results to our work in this primary that aren't nearly so easy enumerate - like leadership development, conversations with neighbors, the power of a former felon telling their story for the first time or a student casting their first ballot. 

It was a tough primary to organize around - with low turnout and a maze of many hundreds of candidates and different election protocols across the state, but KFTC members did a great job!

This election we did an especially good job of integrating strategies and campaigns with our voter work - scheduling events to hit multiple kinds of goals, and leveraging our electoral work more directly to win campaigns.

For all of the results tangible and intangible, thank you to those who made it all possible!

*Numbers updated on June 1st to reflect more complete election results from the State Board of Elections. 

It's 6 a.m. and polls are now open in the Kentucky Primary.

So get out there and Vote!

As always, www.KentuckyElection.org has key information about candidate stances, voting locations, links to what your ballot will look like today, and other important information.  Use it to cast an informed vote today and share it with friends!