By Michael Norton and Matt Murphy

State House News Service

June 23, 2012

BOSTON — Concord Rep. Cory Atkins feels one of her colleagues this election cycle could become the first local victim of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

To hear Atkins tell it, the court’s January 2010 ruling means there’s nothing stopping corporate interests from swooping in days before the election and dumping large amounts of cash into Super PAC ads targeting a particular representative or senator, who would then be unable to respond proportionately.

“It’s unbalanced speech,” said Atkins, adding she disagreed with the court’s ruling that restrictions on corporate political campaign ads violated constitutional free speech protections. “It’s a megaphone versus a whisper. And it’s a megaphone 24-7 versus a whisper for five minutes. They know how to get a message and stay on a message and blast it, blast it, blast it until it’s in your head.”

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