Smart Bombs: The equal protection racket
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that limits on corporate and probably union speech are unconstitutional stems in part from the notion that corporations are “persons.” In September, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor challenged this assumption during arguments over whether corporations have the same constitutional protections as people.
For more than 100 years, some courts have agreed that the 14th Amendment covers corporations, too. Never mind that the intent of the amendment was to extend equal protections to former slaves. Thus, some taxes and restrictions placed on corporations but not regular people have been struck down. This happened routinely as President Franklin Roosevelt attempted to enact sweeping changes during the Great Depression. However, the precedent for this notion that Boeing and Microsoft are just folks is dubious. A Wall Street Journal article traced the origin of this legal fiction:
“In an 1886 tax dispute between the Southern Pacific Railroad and the state of California, the court reporter quoted Chief Justice Morrison Waite telling attorneys to skip arguments over whether the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause applied to corporations, because ‘we are all of opinion that it does.’ ”
The court never ruled on this, and the Southern Pacific Railroad case was decided on other grounds. But “corporations are persons” became enshrined as a legal precedent when the court reporter added that notion to the summary of the case.
It’s still “We, the people,” but to the Supreme Court majority it’s also “GE, the people.”
MOney talks … and VetoeS. Now that the McCain-Feingold restrictions on campaign activities have been struck down on First Amendment grounds, we can expect a great deal more spending from unions and corporations to influence political races. But why bother trying to elect a particular person to do your bidding when you are a person? As long as a corporation is 35 years old and was “born” in the United States, why can’t it run for office?
President Exxon! Vice President Mobil! The possibilities are endless. Goldman-Sachs can run the Treasury Department. Wal-Mart can direct Commerce. United Auto Workers can steer Labor. Aetna can run health care reform. Heck, they already do.
Of course, we’d need to see Exxon’s birth certificate.
Patchwork reforM. Transparency is going to be vital once corporations and other groups step up their political involvement. It would help immensely if candidates volunteered to follow the NASCAR model.
You’ve seen the Viagra and Tylenol race cars battle for pole position, right? Sponsors are splashed all over the vehicles. Politicians could do the same. They just need to sew on patches of the leading dozen or so contributors – leaving the appropriate distance from flag pins – so voters know where they stand before they take a seat.
WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU? A USA Today/Gallup Poll says 55 percent of Americans want Democrats to suspend work on health care bills and get more Republican support. The newest Republican in the Senate will be Scott Brown, and the party is thrilled with his victory. He seems like a guy interested in working on the issue. He voted for universal coverage in Massachusetts, which was a bipartisan effort that was signed into law in 2006 by then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican.
It requires almost all citizens to buy coverage, just like the current congressional bills. If they don’t, they lose the personal exemption on their income taxes. Employers of a certain size must buy insurance for their workers. If they don’t, they’re fined. It provides free health care to people whose income is at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level and partially subsidizes others.
Brown says the congressional bills don’t work for his state. So will this man of the people who embodies the nation’s angst pursue Massachusetts-style reforms or be forced into the back row of the filibuster chorus?