On Tue, 26 Jan 2010, SA wrote:
> Again, the issue of corporate personhood is a red herring.
I'm not arguing with that. I was just suggesting a way this move to amend movment improve their argument and fix a division on the left in one stroke (so that critical leftists like us aren't attacking them too).
> The whole issue of corporate personhood is a distraction from the real issue
> of campaign finance law, which is giving Congress the right to regulate
> campaign expenditures by *anybody* - corporate or non-corporate.
Again, I totally agree.
BTW, have you looked into this? Do you think legislation short of amendment could easily fix this problem that money spent to promote political messages has been defined as being an essential component of political speech -- and therefore entitled to the highest level of protection, and essentially unregulatable?
Or would we need an amendment to do that?
I guess the question is: has Congress ever tried, in their many convolutions over campaign financing, to dirctly tackle this problem of definition and protection? And did the Supreme Court stuff them? Or does everyone in the campaign finance reform biz regard this as the obvious road not taken?
Michael