Me, too. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has his reservations, too:

Have Democrats and progressives been a bit too quick to celebrate the President's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court? By all accounts, Garland is a very decent man. But he may not be aware of – or care about -- the damage that big money is doing to our democracy.

Case in point: In 2010, Garland had an opportunity to interpret the Supreme Court’s horrendous “Citizen’s United” decision narrowly. Instead, he interpreted it broadly.

Garland and his colleagues on the D.C. Circuit ruled in “SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission” that limits placed on contributions to campaign advocacy groups violate the First Amendment. They cited the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision as justification for their decision.

Yet “Citizens United” didn’t deal with limits on contributions by wealthy citizens to campaign advocacy groups; it concerned limits placed on corporate contributions. Garland and his colleagues could have chosen to make this distinction. But they read “Citizens United” broadly to mean “independent expenditures do not corrupt or give the appearance of corruption as a matter of law.” Therefore, they concluded, “the government can have no anti-corruption interest in limiting contributions to independent expenditure-only organizations.”

That broad reading of “Citizens United” ushered in the creation of super PACs. In this respect, the five Republican appointees to the Supreme Court who decided “Citizens United” weren’t the direct parents of super PACs. Garland and his colleagues were.

What do you think?