Thursday, March 3, 2011

Here’s a nifty video that makes sense of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision – and explains the need for a Constitutional amendment to clarify that corporations don’t have “free speech” rights as “people” to spend unlimited money buying elections. There are a number of other links from the site for Free Speech for People, including the wording of the proposed brief amendment. The Center for Responsive Politics has updated its study of the total funds that outside groups spent telling people how to vote in the 2010 election, with conservative-backed entities dwarfing the liberal spenders, thanks largely due to the Citizen United ruling. The consequences of the corporate takeover are found in the stream of legislation being debated in the US House, which follows this theme: if the bill helps business owners, pass it even if it puts a bigger hole in the budget, but if it’s a federal program or regulation that has helped ordinary people’s health and welfare, now’s the time to kill it. Closer to home, the takeover at the General Assembly is spawning a rash of greed-fueled measures, including the revival of the billboard industry’s effort to overrule local ordinances with a proposed state law granting the industry new powers to expand along highways and roadsides.