"The Constitution was written to
protect real people, not to give corporations the power to challenge
our fundamental rights and enacted laws," said Nancy Price, Alliance
for Democracy Co-Chair. "With this decision, a business-friendly
Supreme Court majority is further eroding the very basis of our
democracy by allowing corporate money to dominate the political
process. Corporate political speech is a lot louder than that of
ordinary persons. This is a critical time for our democracy and many
are alarmed."
The Alliance welcomes the
observation by Justice Stevens in his dissent with Justices Ginsburg,
Breyer and Sotomayor concurring, that
"The
conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural
persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also
inadequate to justify the Court's disposition of this case."
However, this should apply to
all Constitutional rights conferred on corporations by the courts
through the doctrine of corporate personhood. It is these
court-conferred rights which have robbed, "we, the people" of our
ability to govern ourselves without interference by the monied-power of
corporations.
Corporations are not persons. They are artificial entities. And as Stevens et al make clear,
"Although
they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not
actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office."
The Supreme Court's expansion
of corporate free speech rights under the First Amendment further
entrenches corporate power in the law of the land. It is a stunning
setback for American democracy and a crime against the rights of
ordinary people.
"We join with our grassroots allies
in the Campaign to Legalize Democracy in support of an amendment to the
U.S. Constitution to remove personhood rights and protections from
corporations for all time," Price said, urging that concerned citizens
visit the new websitewww.MovetoAmend.org and sign in support.
This opinion further entrenches the
controversial legal doctrine of "corporate personhood" arising from
the 1886 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Santa Clara railroad case.
In this decision, the activist court asserted, without explanation,
that the 14thAmendment, enacted to guarantee equal
protection and constitutional rights to recently freed slaves, applied
to corporations. As a result, corporations, artificial entities created
by and subject to state laws, have successfully claimed many of the
constitutional rights that real persons possess, even though the word
"corporation" never appears in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
Corporations have used the
Constitution to challenge the constitutionally recognized rights of
human beings, not just the First Amendment right to free speech but
other protections under the Bill of Rights and the Constitution itself.
The concept of corporate personhood, though absurd on its face, has
been slowly gaining momentum since the mid-19thcentury, as
the hard-won Fourteenth Amendment has been used effectively over the
decades to expand corporate power rather than to protect the rights of
ordinary people. Today's Supreme Court ruling continues this
misdirection.
The Alliance calls on the American people to stand up and take back our democracy which has
fallen under corporate rule and end this corporate crusade to subvert democratically enacted laws.
One step is mandatory public financing of state and federal elections. Another step is a
constitutional amendment to deny corporations First Amendment rights to political speech and to
spend money in elections.
Ultimately, a Constitutional amendment is needed to deny corporate personhood and thereby stripping corporations of all constitutional rights conferred on them piecemeal by the Court over the years.
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