Corporation rights should not equal rights of citizens

Jan. 21 was a very sad day in American history. On that day, the Supreme Court, in a split 5-to-4 ruling, said that corporate entities have the same Constitutional free-speech rights as living, breathing citizens to participate in our electoral process.

Previously, dating back to 1907, Congress had forbade corporations, railroads and national banks from putting money into federal elections. After World War II, Congress extended the ban to include labor unions. More recently, the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002 added an extra limit on corporate and union-funded broadcast ads in the month before an election. Such ads were prohibited if they even mentioned a candidate running for office.

Thursday’s Supreme Court decision swept away all of those restrictions. Corporations are not endowed by their creators with inalienable rights ... but five out of nine Supreme Court justices have now said otherwise.

“The government may not suppress political speech on the basis of the speaker’s corporate identity,” said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, in complete disregard for the reality that corporations have no “identity,” for they are not people.

They do not breathe. They do not eat. And they do not need health care.

Yet, corporations now can legally and directly influence the elections that will impact all of these things.

They will not die on a battlefield, yet they now can legally advocate for and influence the wars we wage.

They do not need education, yet they now can legally influence how our schools are run.

Most disturbing, multinational corporations controlled by foreign governments now have the same rights as American citizens to spend money to tilt U.S. elections.

Last Thursday was, indeed, a sad day for America.