Amendment could strip news media freedom in effort to curb corporate political spending

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Twenty-five congressmen are co-sponsoring a resolution to amend the U.S. Constitution to block the rights it protects from applying to corporations, a change that could also strip newspapers of First Amendment protections.

The proposed People’s Rights Amendment is a reaction to the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision, which decreed that restrictions on corporate political spending were unconstitutional.

Although she isn’t one of the 25 co-sponsors, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday her support for amending the Constitution to prevent corporations from “oozing slime into the political system.”

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Corporate Speech | Constitutional Amendment | Free Press | The Daily Caller

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Twenty-five congressmen are co-sponsoring a resolution to amend the U.S. Constitution to block the rights it protects from applying to corporations, a change that could also strip newspapers of First Amendment protections.

The proposed People’s Rights Amendment is a reaction to the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision, which decreed that restrictions on corporate political spending were unconstitutional.

Although she isn’t one of the 25 co-sponsors, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday her support for amending the Constitution to prevent corporations from “oozing slime into the political system.”

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh warned Friday that the amendment would have far-reaching and unintended consequences. Analyzing the proposal’s language, Volokh wrote that it would give the government power to “ban the speech of nonmedia business corporations [and] ban publications by corporate-run newspapers and magazines.”

The text of the amendment “makes clear that the preservation of the ‘freedom of the press’ applies only to ‘the people,’” wrote Volokh, and “expressly provides that corporations aren’t protected as ‘the people.’”

Boston College law professor Kent Greenfield agrees. In a January op-ed he wrote, “If The New York Times had no constitutional rights of its own, it could be prohibited from printing or distributing its newspapers. Its website could be shut off. Its printing presses could be seized. It could be prohibited from paying employees. The fact that individual reporters would still have rights to distribute homemade handbills or orate from a soapbox would mean little.”

Greenfield told The Daily Caller that eliminating protections for non-human entities “would be dangerous, regardless of whether you are a progressive or a conservative. Everyone organizes themselves in groups,” he explained.

Read more: Corporate Speech | Constitutional Amendment | Free Press | The Daily Caller




Amendment could strip news media freedom in effort to curb corporate political spending – Patriot Update

My My My they are working fast and furiously at their agenda aren't they!!! Wha they won't tell us who the 25 are???