Supremely Reducing Democracy

The Citizens United vs FEC decision granting business corporations free speech “rights” is the latest in a 124 year long history of legal absurdities by the US Supreme Court. The unelected, appointed-for-life robed ones have expanded entrenched Constitutional protections to entities that exist solely through legal charters imposed by the government of We The People. What’s next? Declaring that computers are human beings with Constitutional rights?

It all started when the Supremes, including three Ohioans, declared in 1886 that corporations possessed the same 14th amendment equal protection human rights as freed slaves. The High Court ruled seven years later for the first time that corporations possessed Bill of Rights (5th Amendment due process) protections. The judicial activism continued in 1906 when 4th Amendment Bill of Rights search and seizure protections were granted. It wasn’t until 1977 that the Supremes first anointed corporations political free speech rights.

Citizens United simply expands the bizarre legal concept that corporations should have 1st Amendment free speech rights – this time to donate or invest in campaigns to elect or oppose candidates for public office. This is a further assault on what remains of democracy.

As a member of the Steering Committee of the national Campaign to Legalize Democracy, I invite interested and concerned citizens to visit MovetoAmend.org. Join the more than 40,000 Americans who have in the first week alone signed up calling to amend the U.S Constitution to expand democracy and abolish corporate personhood.