Lewis blasts court ruling

U.S. Senate candidate Ken Lewis says the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance is "dangerous."

"By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court today issued a dangerous ruling that will allow big business to take control of our elections," said Lewis, a Democrat and Chapel Hill lawyer. "Huge corporations can now spend unlimited amounts of money to elect their friends and to defeat candidates who stand up for the interests of regular Americans. Big corporate polluters, huge health insurance companies, predatory lenders, and large Wall Street banks all will be able to tighten their stranglehold on elections in our country."

The Senate race should offer a preview of how the court ruling will change North Carolina elections.

Some political consultants who will be running campaigns in this year's U.S. Senate race said the full impact will not be known until after the election.

"I think you will see a lot more money being spent directly from third parties," said Thomas Mills, a consultant for the campaign of N.C. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, who is also seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr. "I think we're going to have to watch and see how it unfolds."

Paul Shumaker, a Republican campaign consultant working for Burr, had a similar take.

"There's going to be a lot of political people sitting down and looking at this and trying to figure out what this means," he said.