Here we have the Cinderella mayor of Baltimore, trying to clean up the mess created by Sheila Gift Card by demanding a full accounting of city agencies and a strengthening of the ethics commission. And there, just 40 miles to our south, we have the Supreme Court of the United States saying: Never mind all that.

Mayor-to-be Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has been doing the right thing. I don't know whose idea it was to go heavy with the transparency thing -- a pledge to keep City Hall open and honest, and to give the ethics commission some independence -- but that was just what the doctor ordered following Mayor Dixon's plea deal.

Everyone I've spoken to about it, including some experts in executive leadership, give Ms. Rawlings-Blake high marks for the way she has handled the start of her transition from City Council president to mayor. She comes across as a good-government champion, someone who served 15 years without scandal and whose late father was one of the most principled legislators in the Maryland General Assembly.

The incoming mayor's challenges include convincing Baltimoreans that their elected leaders can carry out their duties without being influenced by money or tickets to a Blast game. That's supposed to be a goal of everyone in elected office -- representing the people who gave them power, voting in the public's interest and not in the interest of special interests.

Ever since the progressive era, in the time of Teddy Roosevelt, there have been efforts to rein in the political influence of the fat cats in spats.

Ms. Rawlings-Blake is doing her part, and the effort is appreciated.

But Thursday's Supreme Court decision says nuts to all that.

Firming up ethics laws? Making sure politicians disclose campaign contributions and gifts? Forget about it. Let's party!

The Supreme Court -- the one George W. Bush gave us after the Supreme Court gave us George W. Bush -- says anything goes: Big corporations, already in control of most of the wealth and power in the United States, can now spend as much money as they like to support their favorite political candidates. They can sway elections of senators and representatives and presidents with their millions and billions; they can destroy candidates who don't vote their way.

There were sound reasoning and noble principle in Congress' effort to keep corporations from unduly influencing elections.

But now, the Supreme Court's supposedly nonactivist, conservative majority has returned this influence to corporations, saying the power of money -- of oodles and oodles of money -- is a form of protected speech. Guys on Wall Street can start wearing spats again.

No one with a minimal understanding of human nature and money should be happy about this. That includes conservatives.

But, of course, conservatives have been crowing because they know this decision will have the same result of Bush v. Gore -- the election of a Republican.

Make that, the potential elections of many Republicans, and as soon as the midterm elections of 2010.

I didn't think anything could surpass the stunning news out of Massachusetts of Republican Scott Brown's upset, giving Republicans a Senate seat they didn't expect to have.

But the Supreme Court came up with something within 48 hours.

I'm not a conspiracy nut, but consider the timing of the Supreme Court's sudden jones for judicial activism.

We're in the midst of a painful recession -- 10 percent unemployment nationwide, 7.5 percent in Maryland -- brought on by bubbles that burst throughout the financial world.

Large banks, buoyed by bailouts from the Bush administration, are back making billions in profits and giving out billions in bonuses. People are outraged. Wall Street thrives while Main Street struggles. So the first-term Democratic president rolls out a populist plan to regulate the big banks whose risks and failures contributed to the recession.

This same president stands on the verge of doing something other presidents could not do in the face of fierce conservative and corporate opposition -- get Congress to provide health insurance for millions of Americans who didn't have it.

So, in the midst of all this, the Supreme Court, with six of its nine justices appointed by Republican presidents, decides to fast-track a case about a political infomercial. It ends up making a far-reaching decision that turns back the clock on campaign laws, mocks good-government efforts and, most important of all, creates a potential windfall of spending on behalf of Republican candidates in the coming elections.

It's OK to wear spats again.