| I haven't talked much about the state of healthcare reform - right now, all the action is in the Senate Finance committee and around Baucus' bill, in the form of amendments, amendments, and more amendments - 534 in total!
And everything there is to know about the amendments fits in one beautiful post - a work of art! - by Igor Volsky.
So...what now? How about a discussion of corporate personhood?
The SCOTUS is currently mulling a decision in Citizens United v FEC - a case that could have chilling repercussions on our democracy, if the court's conservatives have their way.
The story:
Last year, the court entertained arguments on whether the Federal Election Commission was wrong in blocking the distribution of a film critical of Hillary Clinton over a video-on-demand service. Citizens United, the nonprofit corporation that produced "Hillary: The Movie,'' calls the film a documentary; the election commission disagreed, deeming it the equivalent of an ad and a violation of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law. And many free-speech advocates shuddered at an interpretation of federal law that allowed a movie by an advocacy group to be subject to campaign-finance restrictions.
But instead of deciding just that issue, the court called for further arguments on a broader one: the distinction between the political rights of corporations and those of actual people. Three conservative justices have long been gunning to overturn a 1990 Supreme Court decision that allowed the government to impose restraints on how corporations can spend money during campaigns.
The Globe in this editorial condemns that conservative impulse, saying "...he distinction between corporate speech and individual speech is clear enough, and the importance of limiting the undue influence of money in politics is significant enough, that the court, in all its wisdom, should leave well enough alone."
Heck, I'd go further. I find the idea of corporate personhood vile, and the legal means to allow moneyed interests to pool their capital to thwart the will of the electorate. It was devised to serve railroad interest in the 1880s, and it's been dogging us ever since, as anyone who's been following the healthcare debate well knows. In essence, giving corporations the constitutional rights of individuals sets those eternally living and deep-pocketed entities above us - which is a kind of madness, really, if you consider that corporations are not reasoning creatures, with neither human needs nor reasoned beliefs.
The New York Times, like the Globe, also opines against expanding corporate rights, and gives us a brief glimpse into the minds of those that might unleash corporate power against us:
In an exchange this month with Chief Justice Roberts, the solicitor general, Elena Kagan, argued against expanding that narrowly defined personhood. "Few of us are only our economic interests," she said. "We have beliefs. We have convictions." Corporations, "engage the political process in an entirely different way, and this is what makes them so much more damaging," she said.
Chief Justice Roberts disagreed: "A large corporation, just like an individual, has many diverse interests." Justice Antonin Scalia said most corporations are "indistinguishable from the individual who owns them."
Maybe these justices should get out more and meet, you know, some people. |
