Someone's Paying Attention
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Submitted by The Mayberry Lane on Tue, 05/04/2010 - 8:49pm
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In a response to the Supreme Court’s recent decision on the Citizens United Case, the Hawaii legislature has proposed a bill that seriously may have some meat to it.
HCR 282 requests the US Congress propose an amendment to the Constitution to “clarify the distinction between the rights of natural persons and the rights of corporations”.
In addition to limiting the corporate buyout of our upcomin’ elections, such a change could mean the liberal tides are finally turnin’ in the right direction.
Although we’ll have to wait to see what comes of it… it sure is swell to know that at least someone’s payin’ attention!
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Comments
Nice catch! Nice to see some elective body sees there IS a
difference, eh?
Personally, I think it's more important...
...explicitly to give Congress the authority to regulate campaign contributions (i.e., eliminating the ridiculous "money=speech" formulation). The problem with removing free speech rights from corporations is that you then give the government the ability to censor media (not that they really need it at this point). The First Amendment doesn't contain the word "person" and uses the word "people" only in reference to the right of assembl.y It says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..." As long as money and speech are held to be equivalent, I don't see a way to prohibit BP or Wellpoint from making a campaign contribution without, say, being able to prohibit Amy Goodman or Bill Moyers from being able to get airtime.
Perhaps that's unduly paranoid of me, but I'm always concerned when someone advocates restriction of liberties.