Vermont Is Gearing Up to Strike a Major Blow to Corporate Personhood, Ban It Statewide

[dreamdancer 0]

some common sense...

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A year ago today, the Supreme Court issued its bizarre Citizens United decision, allowing unlimited corporate spending in elections as a form of “free speech” for the corporate “person.” Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the dissent, had the task of recalling the majority to planet earth and basic common sense.

"Corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires," wrote Stevens. "Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their 'personhood' often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of 'We the People' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."

Fortunately, movements are afoot to reverse a century of accumulated powers and protections granted to corporations by wacky judicial decisions.

In Vermont, state senator Virginia Lyons earlier today presented an anti-corporate personhood resolution for passage in the Vermont legislature.

http://www.alternet.org/news/149620/vermont_is_gearing_up_to_strike_a_major_blow_to_corporate_personhood%2C_ban_it_statewide/

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[rushmc 23]

Actually
I would like to see the VT change go nation wide

That said however, the SC still did the right thing
Free political speech should not be infringed

A company should still be about to share is views and lobby

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[kelpdiver 2]

a state is going to have a hard time redefining a federal result. Congress maybe, but Vermont would lose this at the first challenge.

[Southern_Man 0]

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a state is going to have a hard time redefining a federal result. Congress maybe, but Vermont would lose this at the first challenge.

It's a proposed constitutional amendment, so it would overturn the Supreme Court. Not a chance in hell it gets any traction. I suspect the sponsor doesn't think so either, but can earn populist political points by introducing it.

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

[Niki1 2]

I've made the comment in severel other threads that this concept of "corporate personhood" is perhaps THE main problem in poitics in this country. Our freedoms apply to "we the people". A corporation can't cast a vote. So it should have not enjoy those freedoms and especially not be free to infulence real voters with a massive amount of money. One person, one vote. That's democracy. In our representative form, the reprasentatives can be more focused on getting re-elected than on dealing with the problems they were elected to deal with. Because these "corporate persons" can give a lot of money to help or almost guarantee their re-election. That, in effect, "buys" the reprasentative so the corporation has much more than one vote. What they have is more powerful just like a cancer cell is more powerful than a cell of penicellin. That one cancer cell has grown and corrupted the entire body of our poitical system.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

[Andy9o8 2]

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I've made the comment in severel other threads that this concept of "corporate personhood" is perhaps THE main problem in poitics in this country. Our freedoms apply to "we the people". A corporation can't cast a vote. So it should have not enjoy those freedoms and especially not be free to infulence real voters with a massive amount of money. One person, one vote. That's democracy. In our representative form, the reprasentatives can be more focused on getting re-elected than on dealing with the problems they were elected to deal with. Because these "corporate persons" can give a lot of money to help or almost guarantee their re-election. That, in effect, "buys" the reprasentative so the corporation has much more than one vote. What they have is more powerful just like a cancer cell is more powerful than a cell of penicellin. That one cancer cell has grown and corrupted the entire body of our poitical system.

I'm very sympathetic with the law that the SCOTUS just struck down. I agree that corporate money is one of the cancers of our political system. I'd sorely like to see a way of prohibiting corporations - as corporate entities - from having undue influence in the political process.

But having said that, I look at the exact language of the First Amendment:

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Frankly, there's nothing in there making the prohibition of "abridging the freedom of speech" applicable only to individual persons, or even only to citizens of the U.S. So I think that if another law restricting corporations' ability to participate in the political process is going to pass constitutional muster, it will have to be crafted to take that into account.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Because these "corporate persons" can give a lot of money to help or almost guarantee their re-election.

Meg Whitman spent $160M and still lost badly in California. Money doesn't make up for a crap product.

And let's not forget that McCain-Feingold said that interest groups and unions couldn't talk in the period leading up to an election. Those entities are made up of people.

[Niki1 2]

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I've made the comment in severel other threads that this concept of "corporate personhood" is perhaps THE main problem in poitics in this country. Our freedoms apply to "we the people". A corporation can't cast a vote. So it should have not enjoy those freedoms and especially not be free to infulence real voters with a massive amount of money. One person, one vote. That's democracy. In our representative form, the reprasentatives can be more focused on getting re-elected than on dealing with the problems they were elected to deal with. Because these "corporate persons" can give a lot of money to help or almost guarantee their re-election. That, in effect, "buys" the reprasentative so the corporation has much more than one vote. What they have is more powerful just like a cancer cell is more powerful than a cell of penicellin. That one cancer cell has grown and corrupted the entire body of our poitical system.

I'm very sympathetic with the law that the SCOTUS just struck down. I agree that corporate money is one of the cancers of our political system. I'd sorely like to see a way of prohibiting corporations - as corporate entities - from having undue influence in the political process.

But having said that, I look at the exact language of the First Amendment:

Quote

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Frankly, there's nothing in there making the prohibition of "abridging the freedom of speech" applicable only to individual persons, or even only to citizens of the U.S. So I think that if another law restricting corporations' ability to participate in the political process is going to pass constitutional muster, it will have to be crafted to take that into account.

The Freedom of the Press should give the corporations enough room to have their say without contributing directly ot a candidate. When a candidate takes money from "speciial interests", that is non-voting corporation, I take it to mean that the candidate has sold him/her self. Since they all take the money, it's a matter of the lesser of the evils. I like to beleive the founding fathers had higher ideals.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

[Niki1 2]

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Because these "corporate persons" can give a lot of money to help or almost guarantee their re-election.

Meg Whitman spent $160M and still lost badly in California. Money doesn't make up for a crap product.

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She spent that much for a job paying, what, $225,00. Where did all that money come from? Not only do I think that non-voting special interests should not be allowed to contribute, but no one BUT the constituenceis should be allowed to contribute.

And let's not forget that McCain-Feingold said that interest groups and unions couldn't talk in the period leading up to an election. Those entities are made up of people.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

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[Southern_Man 0]

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She spent that much for a job paying, what, $225,00. Where did all that money come from? Not only do I think that non-voting special interests should not be allowed to contribute, but no one BUT the constituenceis should be allowed to contribute.

As I understand it, most of it was her money. She was her own constituent (eligible to vote for herself), so all of that would be permissible by your standards. John Corzine, Michael Bloomberg, and others have won largely self-funded elections. Whitman lost hers.

I have a problem banning "corporate" money in that any law also targets non-profit organizations. Among such organizations are things like the ARC, the SPCA, the Sierra Club, the NRA, and others. Hard to ban the "corporate" money without banning these as well.

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

[kelpdiver 2]

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Meg Whitman spent $160M and still lost badly in California. Money doesn't make up for a crap product.

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She spent that much for a job paying, what, $225,00. Where did all that money come from?

We know where it came from - largely from herself. Money she earned building Ebay. Just like Perot blew that kind of money he earned building EDS. Another bad candidate who couldn't buy his office.

[Niki1 2]

Is this the beginnig of the "slippery slope" ?

http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/01/19/2781268/campbell-overdoing-it-on-corporate.html

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?