Big news from the Supreme Court yesterday which decided on a 5-4 vote to loosen certain regulations established under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA, better known as the McCain-Feingold Act) to allow corporations and unions to air ads that mention a candidate's name right up to election day.It likely means a larger influx of money from groups that traditionally run these ads, perhaps leading to a more expensive elections cycle.

BCRA put limits on when corporations and unions could air ads specifically mentioning the name of a candidate and this decision removes those limits. This decision also seems to point to the limits, in court, of reform proposals that address only particular streams of money in elections, or particular uses for that that money. It indicates that the future of enacting substantive change in the way we finance elections will be in advocating a total overhaul of the system via full public financing.

Here's USA Today's take on it:

In other words, free speech, particularly political speech, is so important that it must be protected, even when there's a huge downside. Money spent on a political message, whether by an individual or an interest group, is free speech.

The sentiment is right, and the decision is narrowly focused, but it poses a huge problem. It rips a hole in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which since 2002 has been the primary vehicle for limiting the corrupting influence of special-interest money.

They say it's past time to try and fix problems with BCRA, rather an alternative needs to be in place to circumvent the power of big money interests all together like the Clean Elections full public financing approach as in place in Arizona and Maine and proposed in the Senate's Fair Elections Now Act.

Listen to an in-depth evaluation of the decision on NPR's On Point program here -- Public Campaign Action Fund's David Donnelly joins the discussion along with election law experts, analysts, campaign finance reform advocates, and listeners.