This news from Pennsylvania: While presidential candidates clash over the ethics of corporate campaign contributions, a case now before a federal court could make much of the discussion moot. US District Judge Thomas Vanaskie has questioned the constitutionality of the nation’s oldest law on campaign finance, a 1907 ban on corporate contributions to federal candidates, and has asked the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on the statute. The court, based in Philadelphia, is to consider the ban February 16.

The challenge stems from a federal indictment of former Empire Sanitary Landfill executive Renato Mariani for allegedly using corporate money to reimburse employees and friends for contributions to Bob Dole’s presidential campaign.