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Health & Fitness

Are Corporations People?

New campaign financing rules and their impact on democracy.

When the 2012 Republican presidential race began, in August 2011, Mitt Romney declared that, “Corporations are people.” As we enter the actual election year, it is important to think about that statement. Will you be lining up at the ballot with the Michelin Man this November?

The controversy over corporate personhood stems from the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision, in which the nation’s highest court decided that corporations have the same First Amendment right to free speech as individuals, and that monetary campaign contributions are a form of speech.

The result is a campaign funding free-for-all. Thanks to "Citizens United,” corporations can give unlimited amounts of money to candidates, without disclosing any of it. You may suspect that your least favorite politician has been bought off by special interests, but now there is no way to find out.

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It is easy to get wrapped up in corporate conspiracy paranoia, though corporations do a lot of positive things: they make the goods and provide the services that make civilization possible. However, it’s not like they do it for free. As consumers, we pay for those goods and services, and that should be enough.

Politicians should only be concerned about attracting votes, but since they need to spend millions of dollars to get the attention of voters, massive corporate donations can be tempting. The corporations have their billions of dollars of minimally-taxed income, but what do average voters have? They can take care of themselves, but everyone else needs to band together and tell Washington that corporations should not be allowed to corrupt the democratic process.

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Corporations are an important part of our society, but they are not people and, while I’m not a Supreme Court Justice, I’m pretty sure the Bill of Rights only applies to people. 

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