Ted King wrote:
[quote=Doc]
[quote=Ted King]I don't know how you can do a whole lot about the problem without either:

a) amending the Constitution to diminish free speech rights for corporations, unions and other large interest collectives...

Doc wrote:

"Commercial free speech" is not "corporate free speech."

Corporations do not have constitutional rights and privileges. What rights they have in the federal courts come by way of Articles I-III, granted via legislative or executive law or by judicial interpretation.

What is relatively new, however, is the claim that business entities have a constitutional right to utilize their economic power to participate in political campaigns and influence the outcome of public votes free of meaningful public regulation. The idea can be traced to the 1978 case of First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, where a 5 to 4 majority of the Court [1] voided a Massachusetts law that prohibited corporations from expending funds in connection with state referenda having nothing to do with their business on the ground it was an unconstitutional interference with corporate freedom of speech. In brief, Bellotti stands for the principle that corporations may spend money to influence the outcome of a public referendum regardless of whether the issue relates to the corporation’s business interests.

RgrF wrote:
Try for a moment to imagine the shitstorm that would ensue if any serious movement developed to remove these legislated "rights".

5. Overrule Bellotti!

Now that 30 years have passed since Justice Powell took a prefatory comment in a 19th Century railroad case and used it to enfranchise corporations in the political process, events have shown that it is Belotti, not the cases that tried to limit its mischief, which should be up for reconsideration. The incredible growth of corporate presence in all forms of political activity has indeed brought about the corruption of the political process that Justice Powell acknowledged might occur if corporate enterprises were allowed to employ their resources to influence the election of candidates. The “problem of corruption of elected representatives through the creation of political debts” has become the American political reality in the 21st Century. Why not put Bellotti on the table for reconsideration when the Court convenes on September 9?

Emboldened by Bellotti, corporations have indeed taken the program of the Powell Memorandum to heart. The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has increased from 3,400 in 1977 to almost 34,000 in 2006. In the 2008 House and Senate races $400 million dollars was raised and spent for candidates by political action committees, mostly linked to business corporations. Corporate spending for such events as the Inauguration, Party Conventions and even Presidential Debates has become embarrassingly blatant.

RgrF wrote:
My reference was to the interpretation put on corporations, they are not a creature of the constitution, they are a creature of legislation that has been ruled to have developed rights of their own.

Since corporations are a creature of Congress they are subject to the will or whim of Congress, that was the storm I was alluding to. If Congress were to attempt to change that franchise we would see a battle that would make health care seem insignificant.