Get ready for Elections Inc.

The Supreme Court has handed down one of the most controversial decisions in my lifetime. On Jan. 21, the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to corporations by allowing them to pour unrestricted funds into America’s elections. The people of the United States and the Congress are now prohibited from regulating how much money corporations can funnel into our elections.

Corporations have been elevated to the status of personhood with regard to the First Amendment to the Constitution. Even the conservative former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist warned that treating corporate spending as the First Amendment equivalent of individual free speech is “to confuse metaphor with reality.”

Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, independent, conservative or progressive, it should be of great concern to all of us that our elections, which are already overly influenced by money, will now be a virtual corporation free-for-all.

Is there anything that can be done? Maybe: an amendment to the U.S. Constitution stripping corporations of personhood status. Go to www.freespeechforpeople.org to find out what you can do.

Justin StormoGipson

Coeur d’Alene