A Very Simple Idea To Fight the Supreme Court Decision

[berni_mccoy]

Getting a Constitutional Amendment passed to overturn the recent Supreme Court decision giving Corporations the right to spend whatever they want on political ads is going to be a very complicated and difficult endeavor. Not to say that it shouldn't be pursued, but there is a very simple way to solve this problem right now. Put an excise tax on every dollar spent and every dollar earned on these political ads. The Constitution gives the Congress this power. Let's say a company spends $100,000 getting a political advertisement aired. For every dollar they spend, they need to pay the government, say $1.50. And for every dollar the station charges them for air time, the station must also pay $1.50. Simply over-tax anyone who is involved in the process of making and/or airing a political ad for a corporation.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Great idea..but how many Congress critters will vote for it?

[ananda]

2. Good question..

.. since corporations now own the congresscritters too.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

3. has to be across the board...will destroy union participation... n/t

[Blue_Roses]

4. awesome idea

and it goes a long way to helping reduce our deficit.:thumbsup:

[harkadog]

5. Any court in the country would immediately toss that out.

Unconstitutional on its face. You can't use the power of taxation to silence the First Amendment. It would be like charging people who wanted to protest something 50$ each to stand outside of city hall with their signs.

[berni_mccoy]

7. Nope. Stations have to pay for the right to broadcast. It's not a free speech issue at all.

[harkadog]

9. Don't deflect.

You said corporations would have to pay $1.50 for every dollar they spent on an ad. Under our law that is suppression of speech. But go ahead and push it if you want to waste time.

[Statistical]

11. No they don't.

Broadvast stations LICENSE a section of the electromangetic specturm from the FCC.
As frequency ranges which are useful for analog & digital signals is finite it makes sense to license, regulate, or control with "natural resource".

However the license is not subject just to broadcasters.

Radio, TV, cellphones, wireless internet, etc are all subjects to licensing & regulation.

A broadcaster isn't paying for free speech. They are paying to use public airways.

If a broadcaster instead someday wanted to broadcast only to the internet or put programs on DVD and mail them they wouldn't pay a govt fee for that speech.

[laylah]

6. Very few if many...

they are ALL owned!

[Hugabear]

8. I think Alan Grayson has already introduced a bill somewhat like that

Fat chance of it passing though

[Statistical]

10. Unconstitutional.

As of right now corps have same rights as people (due to corrupt SCOTUS).

So replace corporation w/ person and see if the law would stand.

Chagrining people a tax to exercise their right? Really. You seem to miss the larger issue that SCOTUS considers corps = people.

Thus if is constitution for corps it would be constitutional for people.


There would be an immediate constitutional challenge to any such tax.

Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections would be good starting point.

The narrow decision of Harper is that poll tax is unconstitutional. The larger issue that Harper has been a precedent for is that TAXING A RIGHT is Unconstitutional on its face.

If you could tax Corps "free speech right" then you just as easily could tax a persons right to file grievance with the govt, to vote, to protest, or even to exercise the religion you want.
"Sure you can be a Muslim as soon as you pay this $87,000 tax".

Before I get flamed. I DO NOT think corps have rights as people do but the SCOTUS has decided they do and until that is undone anything else is just window dressing.