The Supreme Court made a very important ruling this past week in the Case of Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission. The gist of the ruling is that the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 vote, lifted a 100 year old ban on corporate spending in federal elections.

Essentially, because of this ruling, large (and small) corporations are in a position to spend unlimited amounts of money to either support a political candidate they believe will be sympathetic to that corporation’s interests or to attack a political candidate they believe will not be helpful to the corporation.

While some are trumpeting this ruling as a ruling in favor of free speech, the ruling is based on the legal assumption that a corporation is a person, just like you or I. The concept of “corporate personhood” was originally derived in the late 19th century in order to facilitate the legal and practical operations of the large business that were starting to come about in that era. The attorneys, lawyers and judiciary of that time came up with this concept as a practical solution to what was a difficult legal problem in dealing with the rapid growth of the industrial era. Restrictions on corporate involvement in political campaigns were started at the urging of President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. Labor Unions were similarly restricted after WWII.

Honestly, it is this attorney’s opinion that corporations are not people. They have no feelings, they have no soul, they have no conscience and you cannot put a corporation in prison when it breaks the law. I think we need to rethink the concept of corporate personhood in this country, as it seems to give corporations an enormous amount of rights with only extremely limited accountability.

Supporters of this recent decision cite the fact that the ban is lifted on labor union participation in federal election campaigns as well, thus tempering the massive influence of corporate involvement. Well, as a practical matter, comparing the relative size of the “war chest” of the 100 largest corporations vs. the 100 largest labor unions is a bit like comparing a tea cup to a supertanker oil transport vessel.

For whatever its worth, I think our current government would be better served by LESS corporate involvement in the electoral process, not MORE. No matter what one’s party affiliation, it is just common sense to want our representatives to care more about the people they represent than the corporations that are now able to pay to put them in office. Personally, I believe that all political campaigns should be funded by public money and private contributions not to exceed a very nominal amount, but that may be a post for another blog entry.

What do you think?