Politifact.com takes apart Senator Schumer’s argument last Thursday:  “”With a stroke of a pen, the (U.S. Supreme Court) decided to overrule the 100-year-old ban on corporate expenditures.”

We asked Schumer’s staff about the 100-year-old comment, and they pointed us toward a 1907 law called the Tillman Act. They cited the dissenting opinion issued this week, written by Justice John Paul Stephens, that said, “The majority’s approach to corporate electioneering marks a dramatic break from our past. Congress has placed special limitations on campaign spending by corporations ever since the passage of the Tillman Act in 1907.”

But as we dug deeper into the history of the Tillman Act, the picture got murky because of the difference between independent expenditures and direct contributions.