Are Corporations People?

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations are allowed to make independent expenditures in political campaigns. This ruling struck down decades of laws that said that these companies could not spend from their corporate treasury for electoral actions.

This Supreme Court justified this ruling under the notion that corporations are essentially people.

This ruling was especially damaging in Montana, where we had some of the best laws in the nation regarding corporate influence in elections. Many of our fantastic laws were put in place as a response to the abuses of the Copper Kings.

Because of this ruling, corporations will now be able to spend millions of dollars attempting to defeat candidates that they think don’t have their best interests at heart.

In 2010, we already saw some signs that corporations were opening their coffers, and thus drowning out the voices of average Montanans and Americans seeking to participate in their democracy.

Rep. Ellie Hill (D-Missoula) has introduced a resolution that calls on the U.S. Congress to pass legislation that eliminates corporate person-hood, in order to return our democracy to the actual people. This bill will be heard tomorrow in House Business and Labor Committee.