Letters and Articles on Corporate Personhood and Campaign Financing

Unless otherwise noted, letters were submitted to the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune newspaper

Corporations Are not People

11 February 2010
 

Your January 22 editorial praising the recent Supreme Court decision in Americans United v FEC shows just how far astray this newspaper has gone in its near fanatic support of anything that might favor Republicans. This decision grants near total First Amendment rights to corporations as if they were people. However, they most emphatically are NOT. They are legal constructs created by charter for the sole purpose of making money for their investors.

Bit-by-bit, corporations have used their money to corrupt "our" political system and grab more and more power for themselves. It started in the 1850s with the removal of the requirement to have their charters periodically renewed by proving that they served a public good. Then came the 1886 Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad decision that a court clerk (who also just happened to be a railroad lawyer) interpreted as giving corporations constitutional rights under the 14th Amendment. Strangely, this became generally accepted. Then came the 1976 Buckley v Valeo decision that money is speech (meaning that those with more money get more speech).

Finally, the travesty of the current Citizens United Supreme Court decision outdoes them all. It will open the floodgates of corporate spending to sway elections in their favor and frighten legislators into supporting corporate-friendly policies for fear of being campaigned against.

However, there is still hope for our civil society. A movement has begun to pass a constitutional amendment that takes away the fiction of corporate personhood and allows only natural born people to have constitutional rights.

Corporations Still Are not People

11 July 2010

Jerry McConnell criticizes Rep. Shea-Porter for voting to apply restrictions to corporate spending in political campaigns. He employs the standard right-wing epithets and a string of lies and half truths. I am curious where he is getting his "information."

Let's get one thing straight first. Corporations are artificial legal constructs, not people. Therefore, they should not have any rights not explicitly granted by statute. A string of rulings by "conservative," pro-corporate Supreme Court justices over the past century declaring them to be people does not make them so. These rulings need to be overturned -- by Constitutional amendment, if necessary. Remember, earlier Courts also ruled in favor of slavery and segregation.

Regarding the Disclose Act, it does the following:

1. Prohibits government contractors from campaign spending.
   This restrains a clear conflict of interest problem.

2. Restricts foreign nationals from making contributions to the political activities of foreign-controlled companies.

3. Prohibits corporations from coordinating their political activities with candidates.

4. Requires disclosure of political campaign spending by corporations.

Nowhere in the bill could I find any references to exceptions for unions or other non-profit organizations. In addition, no new restrictions are placed on political speech by individual real human American citizens.

The Supreme Court just gave corporations the right to spend billions of dollars to influence political campaigns in their favor (in addition to the army of lobbyists that they already employ to influence legislators). It is only fair that we the people get some tiny crumbs of protection from this onslaught of corporate control.

Corporations Are People -- According to Supreme Court

16 August 2011

Sadly, Mitt Romney is right -- corporations are now legally people. This is thanks to 130 years of Supreme Court decisions that have granted them more and more rights. Most recently, the Citizens United vs. FEC decision granted them the right to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns through front groups that don't have to reveal their sources of funding. This is totally distorting our elections and government policy to mostly serve their interests rather than those of our country's human citizens.

However, this can be changed. I urge you to join the movement to pass a constitutional amendment repealing corporate personhood.

Corporate Campaign Money Corrupts

7 September 2012

Dee Lewis' letter on the campaign contributions of Sheldon Addelson describes exactly what is wrong with our electoral system. Over the past 140 years, the Supreme Court has granted more and more "rights" to corporations. In 2010, they went all out and ruled that corporations and the super-wealthy can contribute as much as they want to political campaigns. The result of this is a government that serves their interests, not ours. That is why it is so crucial to amend the Constitution to state that corporations are not people and money is not speech. Thirty-six Massachusetts legislative districts have ballot initiatives on this. Be sure to
vote "yes" if it is on yours.

Our democracy is under attack. Not by a socialist president or terrorists, but by the power and wealth of giant, multi-national corporations.

For the past 130 years, a very dangerous concept has been circulating -- that corporations have constitutional rights as if they were people. However, the truth is that they are not granted personhood in the Constitution. They are not even mentioned there or in the Bill of Rights. Indeed, much of the correspondence by the founding fathers around the writing of the Constitution indicates that its authors
considered corporations to be a "necessary evil" that needed to be strictly constrained to prevent them from gaining too much power over citizens and governments.

Instead, corporate personhood is purely a construct of Supreme Court decisions by justices who appear to have a strong pro-corporate bias. They have ruled that "money is speech" and that corporations have the First Amendment right to spend as much as they want on political campaigns.

Some say that corporations need these rights to engage in activities such as entering into contracts and paying bills. But, such abilities can be granted by statute without the need to extend them "rights." Similarly, public advocacy organizations could be granted the ability to promote their agendas, but not necessarily to spend overwhelming amounts of money to do so.

What has happened is that giant corporations have used the "rights" given them by the Supreme Court to use their vast wealth to completely dominate the political process, squeezing out the real people that "our" government is supposed to represent. This leads to abuses such as bailing out banks that bribed their way into being deregulated and multi-billion dollar corporations paying negative taxes.

To prevent these abuses we must return political control to real citizens. We must amend the Constitution to hold that corporations are not people, money is not speech, and the government of the
people has the right and the power to regulate campaign spending. Politicians do not need to continue to take bribes from or to cower at the power of corporations. They need to serve the best interests
of our country as a whole.

This November, there will be a ballot initiative in about 70 cities and towns in Massachusetts on this issue. I urge you to support it and send the message that we want our democracy back.
 

Many conservatives have written letters lambasting critics of the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision, harping on contraceptive coverage as if protecting religious conservatism was the entire issue.  They are missing the real problem -- that the Court extended the concept of corporations as people by granting them the right to have religion and to impose it on their workers.  Today, it's contraceptives.  Tomorrow it might be mandatory dietary restrictions or prayer breaks.

Where will the Court go next?  Maybe it will allow corporations to directly vote in elections in addition to just buying them as they do now.  In the entire 220+ year history of the Supreme Court, they have overwhelmingly ruled in favor of corporate "rights" over human rights.  The only way to stop this madness is to amend the Constitution to unequivocally state that corporations are not people and money is not speech.  Then the people will have a fighting chance.
 

I find I must rebut Michael Christian's response to my letter on the Hobby Lobby case.  In his letter, he sets up a bunch of straw men to be knocked down.

I do believe that corporations should be prohibited from participating in political campaigns.  Their primary interest is maximizing profits -- not serving the public interest -- and their vast resources drown out the ability of ordinary citizens to influence the results.  A future president is already prohibited from forcing corporations to endorse his campaign by existing anti-extortion laws.  Forcing them to endorse his religion is a meaningless concept since they cannot have any religion if they are not people.

It does not matter whether a company is closely held or public.  The owners and top executives can have any personal beliefs they want.  However, they must keep them outside of official company business.  This extends to religion, gun ownership, and any other obsession they might have.

I do agree that an employer can provide or not any combination of employee benefits they want. But that must be defined via statue.  It is not an intrinsic "right".  The fact is that corporations do not have intrinsic constitutional rights, except in the minds of the Supreme Court and corporate lawyers.  They only have privileges that are granted to them by statute that allow them to do business.  The word "corporation" does not even appear in the Constitution.

Corporate personhood is like the Loch Ness Monster in that its original assertion was a lie promulgated by a court reporter who had also been a railroad lawyer.  In the 1886 Supreme Court decision Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific railroad, the formal decision makes no mention of the idea.  Rather, the reporter created a false report of a from the bench statement by the Chief Justice stating that the Court considered corporate personhood to be settled law.  Strangely, no one challenged this and subsequent decisions kept building on and extending this idea.

Finally, it should be noted that the news media have a special, enumerated place in the First Amendment.  This was written specifically to keep government power in check.  However, it does not mention any other corporate entity as having any such protection.

I commend William Klessens for his letter accurately pointing out the problem with massive corporate political spending.  However, I must take issue with the details of his solution.  The "Democracy for All Amendment" (H.J. Res. 2, S.J. Res 51) is nothing more than an ineffectual piece of pablum that will fix nothing.  Its main thrust is that governments MAY regulate political spending -- it is optional.  You can rest assured that corporate lobbyists will see to it that few restrictions are passed.  No, we need a much stronger one that unequivocally establishes that 1) only natural born humans have constitutional rights and not corporations, 2) political spending is not equivalent to First Amendment free speech, and 3) governments SHALL regulate political spending (i.e., it is mandatory).  This is embodied in the "We the People Amendment" (H.J. Res. 48).  Urge your Senators and Representatives to support the amendment that will truly allow for real change to our corrupt political system.

Original Letter:
https://www.eagletribune.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/letter-get-behind-shaheen-s-effort-to-mend-campaign-finance/article_7103363b-7c99-5a54-9745-e124f784477d.html
 

January 21 will mark the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court's "Citizens United vs. FEC" decision, which abolished government's ability to set limits on independent political spending by corporations. Combined with the 2014 "McCutchen vs. FEC" decision doing the same for individuals, this led to the creation of the superPAC and opened the floodgates of corporate spending to influence our elections and elected officials to the tune of billions of dollars, creating a government that serves the interests of the rich and powerful at the expense of ordinary Americans.

Compounding this are other decisions advancing the concept of "corporate personhood" that keep granting them additional constitutional rights, hobbling governments' ability to regulate their activities and limit practices harmful to consumers, workers, and the environment by allowing them to hide behind constitutional protections.

The solution to this is the "We the People Amendment," which would establish that:
1. Artificial entities such as corporations do not have constitutional rights -- only natural born humans.
2. Money does not constitute First Amendment free speech.
3. Federal, state, and local governments are required to regulate and limit political spending.

This amendment has been repeatedly introduced into the House of Representatives (as H.J. Res. 48) and currently has 66 cosponsors. My thanks to Rep. Lori Trahan for being among them. Now, it needs to be introduced into the Senate. To that end, I encourage Senators Warren and Markey to do so.

Only a strong amendment limiting corporations' rights and political spending can return control of our government back to the people. For more information, you can visit: http://www.WeThePeopleMass.org
 

Reason for Huge Political Spending

19 Oct 2020

Richard Briffault does an excellent job describing how a small number of ultra wealthy donors and corporations control government policy through large campaign contributions and dark money PACs.  However, he fails to mention why such political spending is possible.  It is due to 140 years of Supreme Court decisions that have granted ever increasing constitutional rights to corporations and money.

In the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, a court reporter who was also a railroad lawyer put words into the mouth of the Chief Justice asserting that the Court's decision granted corporations Constitutional rights under the 14th Amendment.  Strangely, no one disputed that.

In 1970, a corporate lobbyist, Lewis Powell, wrote the handbook for how the rich and corporations could hijack government to serve their interests.  Its main thrust was to stack the courts with corporate-friendly judges and establish think tanks to promote the corporate agenda (these include the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Federalist Society, among many others).  In 1972, President Nixon appointed him to the Supreme Court, which in the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision declared money to be 1st Amendment free speech.  This allowed the creation of the 501(c)(4) dark money PACs.

The floodgates were then fully opened by the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision that granted corporations the 1st Amendment right to directly contribute to political campaigns without the need for human intermediaries.  This led to the creation of the super-PACs.  It was then compounded by McCutcheon v.  FEC in 2014 that lifted limits in total political spending by individuals.  Other decisions gave corporations additional rights under the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Amendments plus the Constitution's Commerce Clause.

The only sure way to even begin to fix this is to amend the federal Constitution to explicitly state that:

1. Artificial entities such as corporations do not have constitutional rights -- only natural born humans.

2. Money does not constitute First Amendment free speech.

3. Federal, state, and local governments are required to regulate and limit political spending.

This can be accomplished via the "We the People Amendment" (H.J. Res. 48).  A companion state bill, the "We the People Act" (H. 3208, S. 2163) demands that Congress pass the amendment.

I urge readers to contact their legislators at both levels and insist that they support these bills.  It's past time to restore government of, by, and for the people, instead of, as Mark Twain said, "the best government money can buy."

Michael Bleiweiss

Original Column:
https://www.EagleTribune.com/opinion/column-record-campaign-spending-mostly-funded-by-a-handful-of-donors/article_b4b68e28-dadd-51a3-9ebe-368182e0f435.html