editoriaLIES

Seems like we just did this...oh well. Times Union on Feb. 15:

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the floodgates on political spending by corporations and unions...

Just out of curiosity, do you think liberals will ever learn that repeating a lie does not make it true? Lie #1, all the Supreme Court did was overturn an earlier decision that banned organizations from running at during particular times. It did not alter what they could spend from what it was the day before the ruling. It did not alter any spending limits. It did not alter any spending tracking. It affected spending not at all except it altered when they could spend. That's all. Really. That's it. The end. The whole thing. Hardly worth a constitutional amendment, don't you think?

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer seek to do that in separate proposals that at least would force companies to fully disclose how much they spend on elections, and to whose benefit.

This has nothing to do with the Citizens United ruling. They didn't have to do this the day before the ruling. Citizens affected this subject not a whit.

State and federal lawmakers could do even more to counter the court's move to further concentrate political influence in the hands of deep-pocketed corporations and unions.

Lie #2 and I'm just repeating myself at this point - the court did NOTHING to concentrate anything anywhere, they just struck down a 20 year old ban on advertising during certain time periods...if you want to make this argument you are actually arguing that the court re-concentrated political influence with corporations and unions who dominated elections 20 years ago - which is, of course, ludicrous.

Mr. DiNapoli has put up a resolution requiring American International Group -- in which the state pension fund he oversees holds stock -- to report annually to shareholders on its previous year's political spending. Shareholders would vote on whether to ratify the spending, although the vote would be retroactive and advisory only. Still, it would open AIG's political spending to shareholders, and consequently to the public.

It's an idea that every corporation should adopt, and that every shareholder who cares about the influence of money in our democratic system should insist on.

While DiNapoli's 'retroactive' plan sounds pretty stupid to me, I won't argue with private groups setting up their own rules to disclose where they're spending politically. Where the problem of people like me comes in is when you mandate what private companies have to do amongst themselves.

It's also fully compatible with the notion, if you buy it, that corporations -- as associations of people -- are essentially individuals who are free to express their views.

This is a distortion of their political opponent's argument. Corporations are associations of people who are individuals who are free to express their views. All along the media and the left has sought to make mock of this argument by distorting it, claiming that conservatives are saying that a corporation is the same as a person or an individual. Personally I haven't seen anyone making this argument on the right. It also perpetuates the fantasy that the First Amendment says something about individuals and individual rights...which it does not. This statement is merely meant to tarnish those with views other than their own and muddy the waters of factual evidence (for example, you can read the Bill of Right for yourself and see if it talks about the freedom of speech for individuals. Good luck with that.

All such a law would really require is that all the people who have chosen to associate in a corporation, union or other entity get to decide what they want to express and which candidates or issues they want their money to support.

Sounds very democratic to us.

No, not really. Can you imagine if a candidate suddenly comes out with some wacky program that would decimate an industry before an election and there's a law that requires a corporation to get a vote from their shareholders before they're allowed to respond? Exactly. It's nuts. The shareholders elect people to run the company and make those decisions. If they don't like their decisions they can replace them. What if I put it this way - what if there was a law the required your US representative to have a vote of the voters in their district to tell them how to vote on something before they cast their vote.

Exactly.