Brief Description and Rationale for LR 2050: An Act to Prohibit a Corporation from Engaging in Political Speech Ever since headnotes to an 1886 Supreme Court decision--not the decision itself--referred to corporations as "persons," corporations have been hijacking the rights and privileges that our nation's founders intended to protect human beings. Examples include the right to political speech (corporations even pay to have signatures gathered for so-called "citizen" initiatives and finance campaigns to defeat authentic ones), protection from discrimination, and the right not to incriminate oneself. The truth is that large corporations, with their vast financial leverage and exclusive focus on profits, are just the kind of force that this country's founders wanted to protect human beings against. Granting a corporation the constitutional rights of a person gives it literally superhuman powers and subverts the democratic process. LR 2050, introduced by Rep. Ben Dudley of Portland, will correct this by:
Courtesy of Lane Fisher |