Michael Scherer: “Fifteen years after Mitt Romney stood on an Iowa hay bale and proclaimed that ‘firms are individuals, my pal,’ his declaration is not mockable. The sum of money firms spend anonymously to sway federal elections has elevated from $359 million in 2012 to $1.4 billion in the newest presidential cycle. All of that spending by ‘darkish cash’ nonprofits is protected by the identical proper to free speech loved by ‘pure individuals,’ as a result of the Supreme Courtroom determined in Residents United v. FEC that U.S. firms operate as citizen associations underneath the Structure.”
“However not all of those ‘individuals’ are created precisely equal. Whereas people are robotically granted sure rights at beginning, company personhood comes into existence underneath state legal guidelines that outline its powers—a indisputable fact that opponents of company cash in politics hope to make use of to rework how U.S. elections are funded.”
“Hawaii is the primary state to attempt. Earlier this month, a virtually unanimous and bipartisan majority—nicely, as bipartisan because it will get in a state with so few Republicans—of Hawaii’s state legislature voted to vary the powers of firms doing enterprise within the state and not grant them the power to spend on most political causes.”
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