{"id":8788,"date":"2011-11-20T18:19:09","date_gmt":"2011-11-20T23:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=8788"},"modified":"2011-11-20T18:32:55","modified_gmt":"2011-11-20T23:32:55","slug":"fl-democratic-congressman-introduces-corporate-personhood-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2011\/11\/20\/fl-democratic-congressman-introduces-corporate-personhood-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"FL Democratic Congressman Introduces Corporate Personhood Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The story is cryptically named FL Democratic Congressman introduces pro-\u2019Occupy\u2019 amendment to Constitution<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n

 8 \u2018\u2018SECTION 1. The rights protected by the Constitution\n<\/p>\n

 9 of the United States are the rights of natural persons and<\/p>\n

10 do not extend to for-profit corporations, limited liability<\/p>\n

11 companies, or other private entities established for busi-<\/p>\n

12 ness purposes or to promote business interests under the<\/p>\n

13 laws of any state, the United States, or any foreign state.<\/p>\n

14 \u2018\u2018SECTION 2. Such corporate and other private enti-<\/p>\n

15 ties established under law are subject to regulation by the<\/p>\n

16 people through the legislative process so long as such regu-<\/p>\n

17 lations are consistent with the powers of Congress and the<\/p>\n

18 States and do not limit the freedom of the press.<\/p>\n

19 \u2018\u2018SECTION 3. Such corporate and other private enti-<\/p>\n

20 ties shall be prohibited from making contributions or ex-<\/p>\n

21 penditures in any election of any candidate for public of-<\/p>\n

22 fice or the vote upon any ballot measure submitted to the<\/p>\n

23 people.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Does anybody see the loophole big enough to drive a truck through?<\/p>\n

If a corporation that wants to spend money, it just has to open an unstaffed subsidiary that claims to be “The Press”. That subsidiary then cannot be hindered by this amendment from spending any money it wants to for whatever purposes it wants to as long as it can thinly veil it as an activity of “The Press”. <\/p>\n

The constitutional amendment that Cenk Uygur wants to introduce<\/a><\/strong> is much simpler, but probably more flawed by larger ambiguity.<\/p>\n

\nCorporations are not people. They have none of the Constitutional rights of human beings. Corporations are not allowed to give money to any politician, directly or indirectly. No politician can raise over $100 from any person or entity. All elections must be publicly financed.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s tough to write an amendment that lawyers won’t be able to turn into mince meat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story is cryptically named FL Democratic Congressman introduces pro-\u2019Occupy\u2019 amendment to Constitution.  8 \u2018\u2018SECTION 1. The rights protected by the Constitution  9 of the United States are the rights of natural persons and 10 do not extend to for-profit corporations, limited liability 11 companies, or other private entities established for busi- 12 ness purposes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8788"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8794,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8788\/revisions\/8794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}