{"id":278098,"date":"2010-02-04T17:04:20","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T22:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2010985329_corporationsconstitutionalchatter.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-02-04T17:04:20","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T22:04:20","slug":"corporations-constitutional-chatter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/278098","title":{"rendered":"Corporations’ constitutional chatter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will of the executives, not the people<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Bill Maurer, speaking on corporate advocacy [\u201cCorporate speech is not un-American,\u201d Opinion, Feb. 2], notes that \u201ca corporation is made up of people,\u201d he fails to mention that corporate political positions are made up of the executive officers\u2014 often one corporate executive. There is no input from employees, stockholders or customers.<\/p>\n

One example: My wife and I hold Weyerhaeuser stock \u2014 a small amount. A few years ago the governor and Legislature \u2014 conservative Republicans \u2014 of the state of Alabama made the hard decision that some additional tax must be raised to support their schools. An executive of Weyerhaeuser made the decision to put substantial corporate funds into a campaign to defeat this measure.<\/p>\n

My wife and I have grandchildren. We support schools. We were not informed, let alone asked for our \u2014 being the owners \u2014 opinion on this decision. These corporate funds could have been added to our stockholder dividends and we could have decided whether or not to support this, or any other political measure.<\/p>\n

This was brought up at a subsequent stockholder\u2019s meeting and we were told that even if the stockholders voted, it would only be an \u201cadvisory\u201d vote. Where is the Supreme Court decision as to whether the stockholders or a paid \u2014 often well-paid \u2014 executive makes the decisions?<\/p>\n

\u2014 Carl Schwartz, Sammamish<\/em><\/p>\n

Not even a constitutional issue<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bill Maurer misses the whole point in his feeble attempt to justify the recent ruling by the Supreme Court. The Tillman Act \u2014 and related law \u2014 does not abridge the content of corporate speech and thus does not violate the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

But the notion that a few individuals on a corporate board can spend millions to influence a federal election does not support the ideals of a democracy that is \u201cby the people.\u201d Individuals with opposing views have no equitable recourse.<\/p>\n

Spending limits for electoral campaigns is not a constitutional issue. Do you really think that the Founding Fathers, in the 18th century, could imagine the power of today\u2019s mass media \u2014 and would support this politicized court ruling? Does Maurer really think that unrestricted Saudi Aramco money used to influence our Federal elections is a good idea? <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014 Barry Zimmerman, Bellevue<\/em><\/p>\n

The corrosive effect of money<\/strong><\/p>\n

After the recent decision by the Supreme Court, I took the time to read \u2014 again \u2014 the First Amendment and it clearly uses the term \u201cpeople\u201d once. How the high court could translate that into corporations is beyond me \u2014 and many others.<\/p>\n

Bill Maurer\u2019s description of corporations being \u201clike every association \u2026 made up of people\u201d sounds reasonable on its face. But corporations are in fact entities created by the state, controlled by specific laws and are hardly a consultative body that holds the political thoughts, fears and concerns of its investors at heart. I maintain that they were constructed to allow competitive advantages and contribute to the economic well-being of their stockholders and the country in general \u2014 and that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

Their focus is appropriately parochial and they are run by CEOs and boards. In practice, CEOs and boards make the decisions, not the people. Their interest is to make a profit and maximize the return on investment. A lot [of corporations] make a lot of money and that\u2019s probably good. But as a result, their ability to influence the political process is grossly disproportionate due to the vast sums of money at their disposal and that\u2019s probably bad.<\/p>\n

Our system has suffered a continual decline due to many factors but the corrosive effect of money applied to the political process is certainly one of the main contributors. If there was an overarching fear extant when the founders cobbled our nation together, it was fear of domination from one sector \u2014 be it one of the branches of governance, religion or a monarch \u2014 and they injected restraints and checks and balances to ensure lack of domination.<\/p>\n

I think they would be deeply disappointed to see this unfettered source of power and influence \u2014 money \u2014 wedging itself into our political process and would not stand for such a turn of events. Had they known then what we now know, they would have specifically written corporations \u201cout\u201d and preserved all that the First Amendment provides for the people \u2014 individual citizens.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Dave Stromquist, Tacoma<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will of the executives, not the people When Bill Maurer, speaking on corporate advocacy [\u201cCorporate speech is not un-American,\u201d Opinion, Feb. 2], notes that \u201ca corporation is made up of people,\u201d he fails to mention that corporate political positions are made up of the executive officers\u2014 often one corporate executive. There is no input from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}