In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision permitting electioneering by corporations, some members of Congress are introducing legislation that would require CEO’s to state in their commercials that they “approve this message.” For the full story, and many comments including mine, see:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/04/bill-would-force-ceos-to_n_450245.html#postComment
My comment on the Huffington Post story (with a few improvements) is pasted in below:
This proposed legislation is a piece of damage control. It is intended to help mitigate the damage from the recent game-changing Supreme Court decision.
There is a way to reverse the worst feature of this decision, and that is to sign and ratify a treaty with one or more foreign countries, a treaty that would define down corporate personhood. In this era of trans-national corporations, perhaps there needs to be a trans-national consensus on the rights, responsibilities, and raison d’ètre of corporate “persons”.
Of course, the Supreme Court could find this treaty to be un-Constitutional, on account of being a transparent attempt to make an end-run around a Supreme Court decision. In that case, perhaps Congress should expand size of the Court to make room for suitable litmus-tested judges. (This is called ”packing the Court”). When Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried it, the public was outraged and it didn’t happen. But this time the public might cheer the effort.
But wait–maybe this feature of the decision will cause more good than harm. Freedom of expression–speech, press, and the Internet–is under attack now as never before. (I am referring to efforts to make it riskier to publish facts which are “false”, as well as to shut down websites that are tinged with hatred or terrorism.) Perhaps once corporations have these rights, the corporations will all use their massive power to defend them and they could never be taken away.
