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Think corporate ownership of congress critters is bad now, with campaign finance restrictions that still allow health insurers to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaign chests of repug-fellating cowards like Ben Chandler?

Wait until next year, when corporations will be legally able to outright purchase legislators with millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of dollars in unlimited corporate contributions to political campaigns.

That's what the Supreme Court is poised to do, immediately after today's figleaf of "arguments" in Citizens United vs. FEC.

The New York Times Editorial Board, back in July:

With a little-noticed order last week, we fear the Supreme Court has set the stage for dismantling the longstanding ban on corporate spending in elections for president and Congress. If those restrictions are overturned, it would be a disaster for democracy.

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The case would have been easy to resolve on narrow grounds. Instead, the court declared that on Sept. 9 it would hear arguments on whether Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce — an important campaign finance precedent from 1990 — and parts of a more recent case should be overruled.

Austin upheld a law prohibiting corporations from spending their money to elect particular candidates. The Supreme Court rightly pointed out that corporations, as opposed to individuals, benefit from special laws, including tax advantages, that assist them in accumulating large amounts of money. The ban on their spending is needed to prevent the political process from being overwhelmed and corrupted. The Supreme Court has upheld the restriction repeatedly.

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The most troubling part of the court’s action is the brave new world of politics it could usher in. Auto companies that receive multibillion-dollar bailouts could spend vast sums to re-elect the same officials who hand them the money. If Exxon Mobil or Wal-Mart wants something from a member of Congress, it could threaten to spend as much as it takes to defeat him or her in the next election.

It is a nightmare vision, but based on how the justices have come down in past cases, there may well be five votes for it to prevail.

Yesterday, E.J. Dionne argued it "could surrender control of our democracy to corporate interests."

This sounds melodramatic. It's not. The court is considering eviscerating laws that have been on the books since 1907 and 1947 -- in two separate cases -- banning direct contributions and spending by corporations in federal election campaigns. Doing so would obliterate precedents that go back two and three decades.

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Even the word "radical" does not capture the extent to which the justices could turn our political system upside down. Will it use a case originally brought on a narrow issue to bring our politics back to the corruption of the Gilded Age?

Neither the Times nor Dionne is remotely close to alarmist enough.

How long do you think we'll still have a minimum wage after WalMart buys itself a congressional majority? Or clean water or air after Big Coal puts its money on its mouthpieces? Or toll-free highways after speculators buy a few governors?

Wait until the Members from Monsanto outlaw organic produce, and the Senate Brought to You by Exxon bans renewable energy. Are you looking forward to having the producers of Halo III owning your local school board?

Every day, in dozens of ways, your life is safer, more productive, healthier and longer because government regulations stop corporations from squeezing more profit literally out of your hide.

Laws preventing corporations from outright buying lawmakers, governors and presidents were passed barely a generation ago, just a few years before anti-worker economic policies sent corporate profits skyrocketing into outer space.

Corporations now have what they have never had before: enough money to swing enough elections to make this a nation of Big Oil, by Microsoft and for WalMart.

This is why it's not smart for liberals to focus exclusively on a Supreme Court nominee's position on abortion while ignoring her long history of kow-towing to corporations. Justice Sotomayor's going to be leading the pro-corporate charge on this one, kiddies.