Wrong Decision, Wrong Solution

I preface this entry by noting that I'm no "law expert", but I did take Communications Law TWICE (once in undergrad and once for my Masters, no not because I flunked once), and was a TA for such a class for two more semesters. I'm qualified enough to teach the class myself... and I'd rather not get into why I'm currently not. Anyway, suffice to say I know the First Amendment pretty well.

So can anyone tell me where in the First Amendment it says ANYTHING about MONEY? Or corporations for that matter?

By now, most people who follow the news know about the Supreme Court of the United States (and yes, that's how you write it) decision last week that not only threw out much of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, but also decades of election law along with it. The Court pretty much ruled that money equals speech, and to deny anyone the opportunity to use their money to support a candidate in any way is to deny them their right to free speech. And apparently this extends to corporations as well as people (more on that later). The sad thing about it is this case really became a campaign-finance issue through the back door... it was about movie attacking Hillary Clinton that came out during the 2008 Democratic primary process. Apparently a watchdog group thought it was a "campaign ad" and therefore illegal according to McCain-Feingold. That's kinda silly... I mean by that rationale, we could have prevented "Fahrenheit 9-11" from coming out right before the 2004 election. The issue at hand was what exactly constituted a "campaign ad", and clearly a movie does not qualify. Instead, the Supreme Court went completely 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

Anyway, right-wingers are overjoyed. So are unions, who also can spend whatever they like now. So is George Soros, I'm sure. He probably wants the Court to next throw out the individual limits on donating money directly to candidates so he can personally bankroll President Obama's 2012 re-election effort... instead of just funneling it through the MoveOns and Media Matters of the world.

Since I have read Glenn Beck's books, I do tend to think, "What would the Founding Fathers say" about certain things. I'm pretty sure they didn't intend free speech to be connected to money and for that right to be extended to corporations for the purpose of electing career politicians. They would probably look at corporations and 527s and unions and PACs and tell them, "You already have freedom of speech... it's called PUBLIC RELATIONS. You can print anything you want as an organization. That's it. Money is NOT speech." The biggest problem with this, as I have said before, is that if money does indeed equal speech, then that means that freedom of speech is not equal for all Americans. The amount of freedom of speech you have depends on the amount of money you're willing to pay to express it. The rich can spend at will and drown out everyone else. Ever feel like you have no voice in politics because you're just a regular Joe Six-Pack? Yeah, a lot of us do. Well, the Supreme Court just made it law.

In last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, columnist/radio talk show host Michael Smerconish, who really seems to come off as a centrist on a lot of issues (he's even had the president on his show) staunchly defended the SCOTUS ruling and supported the overturning of rulings limiting personal contributions. He thinks it is unfair that people can spend millions to attack a candidate and the person cannot defend himself with his own money. EXCUSE ME? He CAN... through his party's campaign committees, the national committees, and any number of organizations and PACs... it's just that these groups don't defend him as much as they retaliate against the original attacker.

He says that these organizations that bankroll attack ads (they're ALWAYS attack ads) are simply the little people banding together to make their voices heard. If only. Again, MoveOn gets a lot of its money from billionaire Soros, and unions and corporations bankroll a lot of these advocacy groups. The American Petroleum Institute that is always running ads saying we should drill for oil? Yeah, that's the oil companies. How many concerned citizens can actually pool together enough money to buy campaign time? Well, if you're wealthy citizens, then sure you can do that. Which goes back to my original point about free speech now being tilted to the rich. And unions run ads that many of their rank and file members disagree with, same with corporations and their employees. Yeah, the Syracuse Peace Council can get face time and column inches every time they march against something, but what are the odds you'll ever see a TV ad from them around election time?

As bad as this SCOTUS decision was, the immediate response from the left was even worse… they now want “corporate personhood” revoked. By that, I mean the fact that corporations are treated like people in regard to how you legally deal with such entities. It is a common-law tradition that dates back to England. The claims that such status comes from some legal clerk in a 19th-century SCOTUS decision are nothing more than urban legend. But now the left-wingers behind this hope that they can ride the wave of anger at Wall Street to get this accomplished. Why? Because they consider corporate influence on government to be “fascism”. One Inquirer letter-writer even said "you can look it up in the dictionary." Well, clearly that person does not read this blog... because I DID. Just a couple of entries ago... but for his purposes I will actually print the Random House dictionary definition of fascism:

Fascism –noun
1. (sometimes initial capital letter) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
2. (sometimes initial capital letter) the philosophy, principles, or methods of fascism.
3. (initial capital letter) a fascist movement, esp. the one established by Mussolini in Italy 1922–43.

Anyone see “corporations” in there? Me neither. Another definition states that the only difference between fascism and socialism is that fascism does not mandate that government control the economy or that everyone be economically equal. As such, it's easy for those on the left to marry fascism to capitalism and infer the role of corporations... but it's just not there. But I digress...

Suppose this movement against "corporate personhood" were to succeed. If we no longer consider corporations to have the same rights as people, then they should not have the same responsibilities either. If “corporate personhood” is abolished, you can kiss corporate taxes goodbye. If a corporation fouls the air or dirties the waters, don’t expect to be able to sue them anymore. All those banking regulations you liberals want so badly? Can’t do them… can’t prosecute a “non-person”. Sure you can go after the bigwig who ordered the fouling of the air or the unscrupulous behavior, but isn’t it so much easier to fine the ying-yang out of the offending company?

The problem is when knee-jerk liberals make knee-jerk reactions to bad events, they fail to consider WHAT ELSE could happen if they got their way. I'll bet liberals would probably try to repeal the Law of Unintended Consequences if they could... that is, if it were an actual law.

The correct solution is one actually being advanced by Democrats… force shareholders to vote on corporate ad buys… but this needs to be extended to unions as well. Democrat leaders marched before the cameras and decried how Big Oil and Wal-Mart and Evil Insurance could wield influence over elections but not one of them mentioned the influence of UAW or SEIU or other large unions. It needs to go both ways. That is a sensible solution, one that will no doubt enrage right-wingers... but they're wrong. Plain and simple. Take it from someone who's studied this stuff a time or two...