R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

On Wednesday morning, a few hours before President Barack Obama’s speech to Congress on health care reform, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that indirectly explains why the issue has become so controversial.

The case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, is about campaign finance laws, not health care. Specifically, it’s about whether Citizens United, a conservative activist group that produced a movie attacking then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., during the 2008 presidential primary campaign, violated a provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that prohibits corporations, as well as unions, from paying for “electioneering communications” in the 30 days before a primary election.

It calls for a narrow ruling, but judging from the oral arguments, a court majority seems inclined to use it to throw out historic restrictions against direct corporate and union contributions to political campaigns. Indeed, oral arguments in Citizens United first were heard in March, but the court ordered a rare rehearing on broader constitutional issues and scheduled a rare September hearing ahead of its traditional start of session on the first Monday in October.

It’s like using a debate over the infield fly rule as an excuse to rewrite the baseball rulebook. It is a classic case of legislating from the bench — this time from the court’s conservative justices. If the lower-court ruling in Citizens United were to be overturned, it should end all whining from the right about the scourge of “activist judges.”

The core issue is this: Do organizations — including labor unions, huge public companies like Exxon-Mobil and non-profit special interest groups like Citizens United — enjoy the same First Amendment rights as individuals?

Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy are on record as believing that corporations should be treated as citizens in political discussions. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer have long disagreed. As Ms. Ginsburg noted Wednesday, “A corporation, after all, is not endowed by its creator with inalienable rights.”

But the court has three newer members who haven’t been heard from on the issue — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor.

Participating in her first case, Ms. Sotomayor expressed reservations about using the narrow questions raised in Citizens United to overturn years of precedents — including one ruling made as recently as 2003. Mssrs. Roberts and Alito — despite their proclaimed allegiance during their confirmation hearings to the doctrine of stare decisis, giving deference to previous court opinions — seemed to have no such reservations.

“We don’t put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats,” Mr. Roberts said.

McCain-Feingold was intended to curb the pernicious effect of big money on political campaigns. For most of the last 100 years, direct contributions of corporate money have been restricted — though billions get in through loopholes like political action committees, soft-money contributions and individual contributions bundled by lobbyists and big fundraisers.

The idea long has been to reduce the appearance of corruption, to persuade voters that candidates aren’t for sale to the highest bidder.

That horse left the barn a long time ago, and it went through the back door. As health care reform is being debated, the drug and health care industries already have found ways to contribute $17 million to congressional candidates in this election cycle.

If the court rules later this year that corporations may contribute directly to campaigns, it would further reduce Americans’ confidence in the integrity of campaigns and candidates. If that’s possible.