Citizens United decision should be overturned
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Editor,
At the bottom of our common sense, we all still know that corporations aren’t people.
Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives of every party, even Tea Tasters, know this. It is not our fault if five oafs on the U.S. Supreme Court do not share common sense with 80 percent of the American people.
At bottom, it is the Supreme Court “Citizens United” decision, which guaranteed free speech rights to corporations, that opened the floodgates to “dark-money” groups on all sides abusing the tax code, as well as SuperPACs flooding our airwaves and mailboxes with distasteful and misleading ads. Yes, even here in Lake County, Montana.
Citizens United allows groups accountable to no one (not even the IRS, it appears) to flood legitimate political campaigns with unfair, anonymous and all too often dishonest negative advertising without the permission or knowledge of any candidate or political party.
A recent scientific poll shows that about 80 percent of American citizens support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to overturn the Citizens United decision. Montanans, for example, overwhelmingly voted in favor of seeking such an amendment last year.
And a new report, available on the Internet at http://j.mp/AcrosstheAisle-6-4-13, documents more than 100 Republican officials who’ve taken action to amend the U.S. Constitution to reverse “Citizens United.” This is a very good sign.
Please contact your state Legislators and national Congress people to encourage their support in the national effort to overturn the Citizens United decision through a respectful and law-abiding process, namely by amending the U.S. Constitution to correct the Supreme Court’s oafish blunder in ruling that corporations have the same constitutional right to free speech as American citizens.
What privilege or right of citizenship is next for corporations? Does Citizens United provide a precedent to award corporations the right to vote, to marry and to serve in (and command) the military? Let’s not wait to find out.
John Stromnes
Polson
