* Supreme Court holds special session

* Case involves movie critical of Hillary Clinton

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - The Supreme Court returns on Wednesday to consider ending long-standing limits on corporate and union spending in political campaigns — a move critics say could give big money more influence over U.S. elections.

Proponents say the case, which involves a movie critical of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, represents a basic issue of free speech.

But a decision by the nation’s highest court in the case could reshape the rules on how money can be spent in presidential and congressional elections, which already break new spending records with each political cycle.

Some analysts see this as one of the areas where a more conservative court — with two members appointed by former Republican President George W. Bush — may make a dramatic change in the law.

The justices first heard arguments in March but decided in June to hold another session to consider the more important issue of whether to overturn two of its past rulings that limit direct corporate and union financing of campaigns.

Supporters of the restrictions said the court could unleash a flood of corporate money into the U.S. political system to promote or defeat candidates.

“Overturning these well-established laws would turn our elections into free-for-alls, with massive corporate and union spending,” said David Arkush of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington.

“Corporate influence would likely be strengthened over all policy decisions — on healthcare reform, climate change, trade, everything,” said Arkush, director of the group’s Congress Watch division.

SPENDING ON 2008 CAMPAIGNS

In the 2008 election cycle, nearly $6 billion was spent on all federal campaigns, including more than $1 billion from corporate political action committees, trade associations, executives and lobbyists.

The case stemmed from a conservative advocacy group’s challenge to the federal campaign finance law as part of its effort to broadcast and promote a movie critical of Clinton during her presidential campaign.

The group, Citizens United, released a 90-minute documentary film “Hillary: The Movie” in January 2008 when Clinton, then a U.S. senator from New York, was running for president. She later became President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.

The justices cut short their normal summer vacations to hear the 80 minutes of scheduled arguments in the case about a month before the formal opening of their new term. It will be the first case heard by new Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The 2002 campaign finance law at issue in the case was named after Senator John McCain, the unsuccessful Republican presidential nominee in 2008, and Democratic Senator Russell Feingold.

The court’s conservative majority, with the addition of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both Bush appointees, already has voted to limit or strike down parts of the law designed to regulate the role of money in politics and prevent corruption.

The court will consider whether to overrule the part of its 2003 ruling that upheld a provision that restricts broadcast ads by companies and unions right before elections.

It also will consider throwing out the part of the 2003 ruling and its 1990 decision that upheld federal and state limits on corporate spending.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who was considered by Obama for the Supreme Court vacancy that ultimately went to Sotomayor, will be making her first argument before the court in defending the limits.

Theodore Olson, a prominent conservative lawyer, will argue the limits violate free-speech rights.

A ruling is expected late this year or early next year.

At first, I was confused about the resignation of Van Jones, a man so well-suited to his post as the White House Special Advisor on Green Jobs that his tenure should have been long and fruitful. Here was a man who’d founded a human rights organization championing the underprivileged, and then another group, Green for All, that pioneered the idea of re-engaging the working class in progressive new fields of employment like green building and alternative energy. He literally wrote the book on green-collar jobs, The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Solve Our Two Biggest Problems (Harper One 2008) before most people had heard the phrase green collar jobs.

Hearing the news of his resignation over the weekend, I consulted the website of Green for All, the Oakland-based project he co-founded and ran before accepting the White House appointment. GFA expressed sadness and obliquely referred to “the buzz and speculation surrounding this news.”

Clearly, this was a murky issue, and Green For All wanted to avoid the mud.

Once I figured out that Jones had been heckled out of his job by right-wing ideologue, Fox News TV commentator and Supreme Heckler Glenn Beck, I knew there had to be lots more to read.

Chris Kelly had a wickedly blunt column on Huffington Post (though it preceded Jones’ resignation and was mostly about Meg Whitman) that drilled right to the core. He concluded that Jones had come under right-wing fire because he was black and a Marxist. “You might even call him a black Marxist. Because of how black he is. And because he’s a Marxist.”

As more news emerged, it became obvious that race was central. Beck had attacked Jones in retaliation for a boycott of his show led by Color of Change, an African-American advocacy group co-founded by Jones and James Rucker. The group was angered when Beck called President Obama a racist.

Ariana Huffington came on board today with a column thanking Glenn Beck for returning Van Jones to the public sector, where he can be more effective anyway: “Van Jones is a thoughtful leader who knows how to use words to move people to action,” she said. “…Now, thanks to Glenn Beck, we’ve got that voice back. No longer tied to his desk with a sock in his mouth, Van is now freed to do what he does best: inspire and energize groups around the country.”

There’s a scary thought, a black man on the loose inspiring the country. Next thing you know he’ll be wanting to speak to our youth about personal responsibility, fortitude and striving to do well in school.

Speaking of voices. Beck, Kelly and Huffington are all notably partisan, albeit at different political poles.

Which makes me wonder what moderate regular folks think? Could it be that most Americans, stressed by health care, job losses, real estate issues and the continuing war in the Middle East, simply see all this yammering as a missed turn in the road to getting things done? (That is, if they’re aware of it at all.)

For the majority of us who reside outside the political fray, this resignation is simply unfortunate because we need a strong leader guiding us toward more sustainable ways, especially here in the US where we gobble an amazing 40 percent of the world’s resources. We need to transition to new energy sources, green building and efficient business operations that can steer us clear of climate change catastrophes. These changes can and will provide economic renewal in the form of green jobs. That’s not just a hope. Green changes are already happening on a micro-scale, in wind turbine plants, on organic farms, at solar plants and electric car facilities.

The high-level post at the fulcrum of the action is so pivotal, and yet so vulnerable.

On hindsight, anyone serving as the green jobs chief was likely to be skewered in a country that still debates whether global warming exists… and is caused by carbon emissions from human enterprises.

Now we need someone who will help bring us together. Someone who can talk to us about personal responsibility.

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