Are supermajority votes in the Senate to pass all major legislation a good thing?

[Ted King]

Doc wrote:
[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...

You don't have to amend the constitution. The constitution doesn't give any rights to corporations.

Just pass a law that says that all laws that may be interpreted to give corporations the rights or privileges of persons henceforth shall not be interpreted to give them legal rights that may be enforced against any persons natural or fictional.
What about this:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects...ilard.html

LORILLARD TOBACCO CO. v. REILLY

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

For over 25 years, the Court has recognized that commercial speech does not fall outside the purview of the First Amendment. Instead, the Court has afforded commercial speech a measure of First Amendment protection “ ‘commensurate’ ” with its position in relation to other constitutionally guaranteed expression. In recognition of the “distinction between speech proposing a commercial transaction, which occurs in an area traditionally subject to government regulation, and other varieties of speech,” we developed a framework for analyzing regulations of commercial speech that is “substantially similar” to the test for time, place, and manner restrictions.The analysis contains four elements: “At the outset, we must determine whether the expression is protected by the First Amendment. For commercial speech to come within that provision, it at least must concern lawful activity and not be misleading. Next, we ask whether the asserted governmental interest is substantial. If both inquiries yield positive answers, we must determine whether the regulation directly advances the governmental interest asserted, and whether it is not more extensive than is necessary to serve that interest.”

Lobbyists for corporations, in particular, seem to be related more to the 'to petition the government for a redress of grievances' part of the first amendment as much as the 'free speech' part, so I'm not sure if the above case speaks all that directly to the lobbyist thing. I'll try to do more Googling on that. But the case does seem to indicate that the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations do have some kind of rights under the Constitution (at least the First Amendment to the Constitution).