In a recent and rare interview, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg revealed her continued criticism of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizen United ruling.

She is quoted,  “You take the limits off and say, ‘You can spend as much as you want,’ and people will spend and spend,” she said. “People are appalled abroad. It’s a question I get asked all the time: Why should elections be determined by how much a candidate can spend and why should candidates spend most of their time these days raising the funds so that they will prevail in the next election?”

The article continues,

“Super-political action committees, political committees, tax-exempt organizations and other non-party entities reported $1.04 billion in spending on independent expenditures and electioneering communications advocating federal candidates in the 2012 election cycle. That’s three times the $338 million reported by groups in the 2008 elections and five times the amount reported in 2004.

Ginsburg said the court shifted, leaving her more frequently in dissent in major cases, when Justice Samuel Alito succeeded Sandra Day O’Connor in 2006. During the most recent term, Ginsburg read dissents from the bench in an unusually large number of cases — five — including fights over affirmative action, minority voting rights and employment discrimination.

She was the lone dissenter in the affirmative action case, a compromise decision that told a lower court to give tougher scrutiny to a University of Texas policy of considering race in admissions. The court left intact a 2003 decision that said schools seeking to ensure campus diversity could consider race as part of a broad review of an applicant’s file. Super-political action committees, political committees, tax-exempt organizations and other non-party entities reported $1.04 billion in spending on independent expenditures and electioneering communications advocating federal candidates in the 2012 election cycle. That’s three times the $338 million reported by groups in the 2008 elections and five times the amount reported in 2004.

Ginsburg said the court shifted, leaving her more frequently in dissent in major cases, when Justice Samuel Alito succeeded Sandra Day O’Connor in 2006. During the most recent term, Ginsburg read dissents from the bench in an unusually large number of cases — five — including fights over affirmative action, minority voting rights and employment discrimination.

She was the lone dissenter in the affirmative action case, a compromise decision that told a lower court to give tougher scrutiny to a University of Texas policy of considering race in admissions. The court left intact a 2003 decision that said schools seeking to ensure campus diversity could consider race as part of a broad review of an applicant’s file.” You can read the article from Bloomberg in full here.

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