Please allow me to expand upon this a little bit:
As early as the mid-1800's the trusts and tycoons had been trying, without success, for decades to have the SCOTUS declare corporations people. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886), the Supreme Court recognized corporations as persons for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In 2003, the SCOTUS declared corporate funding cannot be limited under the First Amendment, in 2010 SCOTUS declared money to be speech and removed all limits to corporate spending on lobbying.
The corporate person-hood aspect of the campaign finance debate turns on Buckley v. Valeo (1976) and Citizens United (2010): Buckley ruled that political spending is protected by the First Amendment right to free speech, while Citizens United ruled that corporate political spending is protected, holding that corporations have a First Amendment right to free speech.
Result: corporations, government licensed creatures, now have become the government, by using their wealth to "unfairly influence elections." This lead to the first stirrings of unrest in the civil populous, most notably the 'Occupy Wall Street' demonstrations, citing no faith in their elected officials because of the undue power wielded by corporations and special interest groups to influence law makers.
Now, protected by the very institutions that had been in place to protect people, citizens of the United States are denied at least two of the traditional corner stones of a democracy. Those foundations stones being the Ballot and Jury box.
Timeline:
-Tillman Act of 1907, banned corporate political contributions to national campaigns.
-Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, landmark campaign financing legislation.
-Buckley v. Valeo (1976) upheld limits on campaign contributions, but held that spending money to influence elections is protected speech as in the first amendment.
-First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) upheld the rights of corporations to spend money in non-candidate elections (i.e. ballot initiatives and referendums).
-Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) upheld the right of the state of Michigan to prohibit corporations from using money from their corporate treasuries to support or oppose candidates in elections, noting that "[c]orporate wealth can unfairly influence elections."
-Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain–Feingold), banned corporate funding of issue advocacy ads that mentioned candidates close to an election.
-McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003), substantially upheld McCain–Feingold.
-Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2007) weakened McCain–Feingold, but upheld core of McConnell.
-Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) the Supreme Court of the United States held that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment, overruling Austin (1990) and partly overruling McConnell (2003).
