Friday, January 22, 2010

The Supremes hit a sour note

The Supreme Court decided today that business and corporations may spend whatever they want in just about any way to influence political campaigns.  They were wrong.  Corporations are not people.  People have guaranteed rights under the constitutions.  Corporations have no such guarantees.

Freedom of the press is not a freedom guaranteed to corporations.  It is an extension of the freedom of speech for an individual to express himself/herself in published written form.

People's rights to spend on campaigns are limited by various laws.  Why are corporations now exempt?

I was greatly amused to see that many CEOs immediately responded by asking Congress to overhaul campaign finance so that they would stop getting asked for campaign contributions.  I don't think that will happen.  I think we will see some companies form internal policies limiting their annual campaign contributions.  But I also think we will see a large number of corporations spend tremendous amounts of money campaigning.

This will not end well.  We just thought we were miserable during campaign season.  We will see campaign spending steadily increase, now.

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