Larry Beinhart's Body Politics

They Even Sued Henry Ford

by Larry Beinhart, March 25, 2010

The Supreme Court recently threw out campaign finance laws.

The case was Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Citizens United is a conservative group a little to the right of Glenn Beck. They produced a virulently anti-Hillary Clinton film (Hillary: The Movie). Since it was directed at a particular candidate during a political campaign, the Federal Election Commission decided that production and broadcast costs exceeded legally permitted campaign spending limits.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 verdict, overturned the FEC ruling. The Court’s decision was based on two rather disturbing principles.

The first is that corporations have the same free speech rights as people and those rights can’t be restricted.
Are corporations the same as people? If they are, does it cut both ways? If a corporation commits a crime, should it be treated as a person is treated?

Damon Clinical Laboratories, one of the three major lab testing companies, made, literally, millions of fraudulent claims against Medicare and Medicaid. If a person committed one tenth as many frauds they would go to jail. If a corporation has the rights of a person, shouldn’t it be held to the same standards of responsibility? Shouldn’t the corporation be imprisoned?

Visualize all their employees in orange jumpsuits when they’re at the office so they’re easily identified as working for a criminal enterprise. Make them wear cuffs and shackles when they do business offsite. Allow them the use of only one bank pay phones. Make them stand in line behind other criminal corporations for their five minutes per call.

My best friend, who is a major corporate attorney, says that’s unfair and impractical. If crimes have been committed, then the individuals in the corporations who committed them should, perhaps, go to jail, but not the institutions. After all, the corporations are also doing useful business things and they employ many people who would be injured if the entire corporations were prosecuted.

Many people—I use “people” here to refer to actual flesh and blood individuals—who commit crimes have lives that are otherwise decent and useful and productive. They have families who are dependent on them. Perhaps employers, employees, relatives, and friends who rely on their good services.