Campaign law should be fair to all
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The Montana House of Representatives failed to pass House Joint Resolution 6, “a joint resolution of the Senate and the House of Representatives of the State of Montana encouraging Montana’s elected officials to work to amend the Constitution of the United States to provide that corporations, including nonprofit corporations, unions and associations, are not human beings with constitutional rights.”
I voted with the majority of legislators to kill this poorly written resolution. This resolution could have probably gotten the full support of the House if it would have just stated the following: “Whereas, limits on campaign expenditures and contributions apply to corporations, including nonprofit corporations, as well as unions and associations, and these campaign expenditures and contributions may be prohibited by a political body at any level of government.”
This resolution was written to support I-166, which was passed by the voters in November. I believe voters’ intent was to just put corporations and other organizations subject to the same campaign contribution limits that individuals are subject to and or prohibit these expenditures or contributions. Thus, if individuals (human beings) are subject to limits or exclusions, then corporations and unions should also be subject to the same limitations. That is only fair to all parties.
Language that I took particular offense to was, “the people of Montana regard immense aggregation of wealth that is accumulated by corporations using advantages provided by the government to be corrosive and distorting when used to advance the political interest of corporations.” This seems to imply that all corporations have large aggregations of wealth and use corrosive and distorting actions. It does not say which corporations, so I assume it means the many businesses that operate in Montana. Many of your friends and neighbors run businesses in Montana in the form of corporations. These include farms, ranches, doctors, hospitals, retail stores, restaurants, etc., just to name a few. These corporations provide many jobs to Montanans, pay taxes, provide donations to local charities and are leaders in our communities.
Do we really want to pass a resolution against many of the good corporations that help our friends, neighbors and our communities? There are bad corporations and good corporations just like there are bad people and good people. The majority of people and corporations are good citizens and organizations. We should not be putting a label on all corporations or people because of a few bad apples.
What we need to do is make sure that all entities are treated equally under campaign finance laws and that no corporation, union or individual can take advantage of loopholes in campaign finance or other laws.
As always, you don’t have to come all the way to the capitol to participate. If you have any input about specific bills, please don’t hesitate to contact me by email at greghertz11@gmail.com or call or text me at (406) 253-9505. You can also leave messages for individual legislators or committees by calling (406) 444-4800. For more information on Montana’s 63rd legislative session, visit the legislature’s website at www.leg.mt.gov.
