To: President Donald Trump
CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PERSONS
America needs a constitutional amendment to define the difference between a corporation and a person, by reaffirming that corporations don't live and die as persons but instead are business "privileges" granted by governments that can exist in perpetuity.
Why is this important?
In 2008, The Supreme Court decided that corporations can use their money to buy political speech during peak campaign seasons. As a result, independent corporate political speech is now protected under the First Amendment. According to the Supreme Court, money becomes speech when corporations use money to speak. This makes corporations entitled to First Amendment free speech protection. Now, according to the Supreme Court, money is speech which makes corporations persons.
This tortured and butchered logic underpinned the High Courts ruling in the Citizens United case. Citizens United wanted to use corporate money to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton which would have violated The McCain–Feingold campaign finance reform Act. The Supreme Court overturned the law on First Amendment grounds. The law previously prohibited "electioneering communication" by corporations.
This tortured and butchered logic underpinned the High Courts ruling in the Citizens United case. Citizens United wanted to use corporate money to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton which would have violated The McCain–Feingold campaign finance reform Act. The Supreme Court overturned the law on First Amendment grounds. The law previously prohibited "electioneering communication" by corporations.