Corporations aren’t people, don’t merit special protections (Boston Globe editorial)

[struggle4progress]

WHEN FIVE US Supreme Court justices struck down vital restrictions on spending by corporations in political races this week, they were reacting, to some degree, to the evident flaws in existing campaign-finance regulation. Yes, special-interest money will find its way into the political system, as Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion points out. Yes, the Federal Election Commission has to make fine, subjective judgments, such as whether an ideologically motivated documentary film counts as a campaign ad. And yes, limits on corporate campaign activity necessarily mean that businesses, nonprofits, and labor unions cannot always throw their weight behind candidates to the extent that their leaders might like.

Still, these complications hardly justify the far-reaching conclusion that corporations should enjoy the same free-speech rights as real human beings ...

In deciding the case, the five justices assumed that campaign-finance rules are keeping business and union interests out of the political marketplace, when experience suggests the opposite. The justices also ignored the possibility that a vast influx of corporate money into elections will promote corruption. Never mind that, as recently as June of last year, Kennedy himself acknowledged that corporate campaign spending can cloud an official’s judgment, when he wrote an opinion ordering West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin to recuse himself in a case involving a company whose CEO had spent $3 million to get Benjamin elected.

It simply isn’t true that federal law gives corporations no voice in politics, since they can set up political-action committees that take donations from their employees and shareholders. What corporations haven’t been able to do is pay for political activity out of their treasuries. And with good reason: Even a small corporation can bring far more money to bear on a candidate than all but the wealthiest individuals ...

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/01/23/corporations_arent_people_dont_merit_special_protections/

[trthnd4jstc]

1. I own the majority share of a small corporation, and I would never think to spend its money on

Politics! Corporations are means of protecting private interests, and are not people, and should not have the same rights of people. People should be above the corporations.

[struggle4progress]

2. We lack an adequate political and economic vocabulary for many purposes. I expect most

DUers understand that incorporation is a basic tool for any business in the US, large or small, and that the real issue is not "corporations" but certain specific corporations, too numerous (however) to mention explicitly. The largest national or multinational companies probably outstrip a number of historical empires in size, wealth, and power

I suspect that you are typical in not planning to expend corporate monies on politics -- though even if you did, I could note the smaller companies are not really the source of the concern

[Bitwit1234]

3. Yeah and guess what the five judges on the supreme court

that think they are, just have to be zombie robots.