You do realize that Congress does have the right to prevent you from broadcasting your opinions, right?
Corporations currently mandate that a certain percentage of profits be directed toward political campaigns. The stockholders through their representation can change this just as union members can change the way the union operates. Union members are not employees, the relationship to the union is closer to the relationship between a corporation and it’s stockholders.
BTW: I think both activities should be banned. Let the individuals speak with their money.
The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld spending limits from a constitutional challenge brought by Stephen Harper(pre-Prime Ministerial period). The Court held that the goal of spending limits was to create a level playing field, so that individuals with money could not dominate the political discourse.
[QUOTE=Bastarche J. for the majority of the Supreme Court of Canada]
Section 350 is justified under s. 1 of the Charter. While the overarching objective of the third party advertising expense limits is electoral fairness, more narrowly characterized, the objectives of the scheme are threefold: (1) to promote equality in the political discourse; (2) to protect the integrity of the financing regime applicable to candidates and parties; and (3) to ensure that voters have confidence in the electoral process. In view of the findings of the Lortie Commission, the central piece of the evidential record in this case, these three objectives are pressing and substantial. Section 350 also meets the proportionality test. First, the third party advertising expense limits are rationally connected to the objectives. They prevent those who have access to significant financial resources, and are able to purchase unlimited amount of advertising, to dominate the electoral discourse to the detriment of others; they create a balance between the financial resources of each candidate or political party; and they advance the perception that the electoral process is substantively fair as it provides for a reasonable degree of equality between citizens who wish to participate in that process.
[/QUOTE]
I pledge association to the Flag,
Of the Corporate States of America,
And to the Plutocracy for which it stands,
One merger, under the present CEO,
With liberty and justice for sale.
That is so unAmerican. We love our corporate masters. They care about each and every one of their little children. They will well us who to vote for. They can be trusted.
Then you, too, are an associate of USACorp? Well, then long live the present CEO!
No this is wrong. In the US unions can not use membership dues for political contributions. None of my fees or union dues go to any canidate. I do get letters asking me to give to the union’s PAC and the union paper will have articles explaining why we should give to the union’s PAC. By I can not be forced to pay into the union’s PAC, and I do not.
And Closed shops are against the law in the US.
LOL!!!
(Forgive me for furthering the non-Canadian hijack, but you Canucks are used to that by now, right?)
I can see both sides of this issue. On one hand, I would certainly like to see less corporate influence over our government. On the other hand, simply put, corporations can’t vote - only citizens can vote. The corps can always try to influence us, as they are so used to doing, but it is ultimately in our control whether or not to allow their campaign contributions and resulting advertisements/etc to sway us. I’m pretty sure this was a large part of the reasoning behind the SCOTUS decision. (Though I only read a couple articles and not the whole decision.)
We the people have all the voting power, and it’s free. The corporations/special interests have no voting power, but they can spend millions to try and influence us, and unfortunately, our politicians. Seems kind of shitty in practice, but in principal it does somewhat strike a balance that should in theory still leave control ultimately in the hands of the citizens. (If only most of actually voted, and those who do don’t vote like sheep.)
All that said, the day corporations get the right to vote is the day I decide either to revolt or emigrate. (but yeah, that’ll never happen…I hope!)
Corporations can not vote because they are not people. The Supreme Court is the only one who thinks they are.
It is profoundly unfair for corporations to back political campaigns because they use money that belongs to the stock holders, who may or may not agree with their stances. Your money may be used to back political ads, that you disagree with. Doesn’t seem fair to me.
Well, if that were true, then corporations could vote.
Any stock holder is free to sell their stock if they disagree with anything the company does. That seems fair enough to me.
Worse than that, privately-held/family-run corporations can do their damage without needing investors (except for each other).
So - the crux of this is whether corporations have First Amendment rights. All other questions break against this one. And the First Amendment has never been read to restrict the First Amendment when groups of people are involved - indeed, several First Amendment freedoms (freedom of the press, freedom to assemble, freedom of religion, freedom to petition, etc) are properly understood as fully or partially corporate rights.
So this seems to be an answered question - and the question ought not to be banning corporate political activity but dealing with it with the understanding that it is expressly permitted by the First Amendment.
No it has not be answered.
Today we would not return Mr. Scott to his owners. Rights in America do change or evolve over time. It would take a Constitutional amendment, but that isn’t impossible.
A corporation isn’t a group of people.
Even though the corporation has a legally separate identity, it is still made up of individual shareholders who together invest in the corporation and participate in its governance. This is true of nonprofit and for-profit corporations alike. And though it is not unheard of for a single individual to hold all of a corporation’s stock, in general a group of people hold these shares.
As a practical matter amending any of the Bill of Rights is impossible.
Dude, thanks to Citizens United, corporations OWN the US government’s top officials. We got bigger fish to fry. We’ll sort out the censorship issues later. We gotta get the government back in the people’s hands. What’s the point of free speech when the only speech that matters is that of corporate honchos? We can natter on this message board all we like, for example, and until the corporations are pried loose from Congress and the Presidency, it makes not a damn bit of difference what we say.
Damn right! I’m a little tired of the “People with the most money get to make all the rules” routine. Did you know that Harry S. Truman was the last President actually elected by the American People? Since then, elections have been held, but each one was specifically engineered to put people that CEO’s could trust to fill their coffers with more of our money than they deserve.
Well, hell yeah. I finally got the final word in on something!