The LA Times’ David Savage reports on the upcoming rehearing of argument in Citizens United.

This could take us back to the era when people referred to the senator from Standard Oil,” said Washington lawyer Trevor Potter, who last year advised Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign. “If you have hundreds of millions of corporate dollars flowing into these races, it could drown out the speech of ordinary voters.”

Skeptics of the campaign finance laws are not convinced.

“This would not be the end of democracy,” said Bradley Smith, a law professor at Capital University in Ohio and a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission. About half the states, including California, permit corporations to spend freely in state races, he said, and few corporations have chosen to invest large sums in those contests.