It's barely a month ago, but the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United could have a bearing on tomorrow's vote on letting Vermont Yankee's operating license expire on time.

Or maybe I should say that considerations of Citizens United should have a tremendous bearing on the vote, and here's why. You probably know what the Supreme Court did in Citizens United, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that they opened the floodgates to unlimited spending by corporations in political campaigns.

Corporations like Enexus, or Entergy, or whatever they're calling themselves to stay ahead of state scrutiny these days.

You probably get campaign solicitations from political parties every week. In fact, I just got one while I was writing this. If you're like me, whenever you get these calls you think about how important the cause is, what your budget happens to look like that week, and you decide how much you can afford to spend.

If you're Entergy, what's potentially at stake in November's election is whether they get to keep running their plant, so let's take a look at the numbers. On average, Vermont Yankee sells the electricity it generates at about a nickel a kwh, or $50 per Megawatt hour, so every hour their sales are about $31,500, and every day they're running it's about $756,000. In a year that puts their sales at about $276,000,000. Kind of a lot of money, huh?

Now, we have a state Senate (maybe) and five Democratic candidates for governor who are saying they should be required to shut down in 2012, which means shutting off the $276 million spigot. One might think it's worth a lot of money to them to stop that from happening. That's why they're buying all the full-page ads in the paper, running all the TV spots, flying their PR flack up from New Orleansto glad-hand the locals, and offering a sweetheart deal (what? Did you say bribe? I'm shocked!) if we let them keep running.

And their message? The same as Douglas's message: do nothing. They know that Douglas won't be around to carry their heavy water next year, but they can hope that Brian Dubie will follow in Douglas's footsteps, if only they can sit on the ball until November. That's why they are doing what they can to stall a legislative vote this year.

But remember Citizens United? That's the game changer in this fight. Say the Democratic candidate is Peter Shumlin, who has come out strong against relicensing. Or, for that matter, any other D, all of whom favor closing VY. And just say, just for the hell of it, that Dubie has come out in favor of relicensing. (He can't hide forever, right?)

Thanks to Citizens United, if the election in November is between a Democrat who favors shutting down VY and a Republican who favors keeping it open, how much is it worth it to Entergy to keep the plant running? Obviously not three quarters of a million a day, because that's their total sales, but definitely in the millions, right? Tens of millions? What does it cost to pay for a governor and sixteen senators?

If it's still an open question in November, we can expect to see possibly the most expensive election in Vermont history.

The vote's tomorrow, and the Senate should vote No and let VY close.