03/17/2010 12:02:49 AM EST

Not a joke: A corporation is running for Congress

posted by EveningStarNM

When the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission that corporations have a right to participate in elections and to spend as much as they want to influence them, it extended the rights that corporations are allowed to exercise even farther into the domain of human beings than before.

Now, corporations in Maryland and Virginia are running for Congress in order to find out if the members of the Supreme Court who decided that case in the affirmative are really as stupid as they seem.

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Murray Hill, Inc., a public relations firm that normally represents progressive causes, is seeking to enter the Republican primary for the Maryland 8th District.  William Kline, who serves as Murray Hill, Inc.'s campaign manager, said that the firm "wanted to run as a Republican because we feel the Republican Party is more receptive to our basic message that corporations are people, too."

You can donate to it via its campaign web site. Believe me, I am strongly considering giving it a donation. I want to stick this crap up Justice Roberts' ass, and I can't think of a better way to do it than to force him to rule on this obvious consequence of his decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission.

It has a couple of obstacles, the main one seeming to be that it is only five years old and may not meet the age requirement without the assistance of a proxy.  But it's not certain yet that the firm will not be able to participate in the primary.

In the meantime, the corporation is offering franchises, and has found a taker in Computer Umbrella of Sterling, Inc, a company that is running in the Virgina 10th Congressional district.

Personally, I hope it wins.  I can't wait to see what happens next.

See the full story in the Washington Post.

Update [2010-3-17 5:8:21 by EveningStarNM]: Please buy one of their yard signs to help support this effort. They also have T-shirts, coffee mugs, and a mouse pad.

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Not a joke: A corporation is running for Congress | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)
Why not skip a step (none / 0)
Why not just skip a step and go ahead and vote for the corporation? Save the money being spent on the middle man proxy politician. I hope Well Point runs for Senate.

by ddequus on 03/17/2010 12:31:54 AM EST

Great!!! (none / 0)
After this scandalous SCOTUS ruling, it was the first step I advocated and now somebody is really doing it.

If they are too young to run, they could probably still found a religion that worships the Allmighty Dollar to become tax exempt.

The best thing to fight stupid legislation is to show its stupidity.

"The first thing Fascists usually try to do is silencing the opposition."

by opposition on 03/17/2010 02:08:09 AM EST

Is OCP one of the corporation running for office? (none / 0)
I hear they are really good at producing Robocops.

by wowisdabomb on 03/17/2010 10:04:32 AM EST

sigh (none / 0)
Listen - I know it's ridiculous that we treat Corporations like people, that we think spending money on political ads is their exercise of free political speech.

But it's not the Supreme Court's fault.  The rules under McCain Feingold were pretty arbitrary and ridiculous.

Citizens United was a nonprofit that got 1% of its funding from corporate sources - the rest was individuals.  Imagine if TYT got 1% of its funding from a corporation and suddenly couldn't do any political commentary 60 days before an election.

It's absurd.

What you ought to get upset about is the fact that Congress ALLOWS the states to compete for corporate citizenship - the state that makes the nicest corporate laws wins!

That's why 70% of all US corporations are citizens of Delaware.  They have a low population, so it's easy to buy all the state elections, get nice corporate friendly judges appointed to the special corporate court, where most lawsuits against those corporations are brought.

All it would take is Congress stepping in and amending corporate law to deprive them of "personhood".  It would take one simple bill.  

The Supreme Court is simply applying the absolutely STUPID existing rules.  We may not like it.  We may want the Supreme Court to do what's right even if it skirts the rules.  We may want them to follow their hearts instead of their heads or wallets.  But that's really not their job.

It's our job to elect people who make laws to protect us, not corporations.  Until we do that, don't expect the judges appointed by the jerks that do get elected to go above and beyond.

by dotkommissar on 03/17/2010 02:51:06 PM EST

There's An App For That (none / 0)

Your can incorporate your i-Phone and run as well, only if you buy ATT's FamilyTalk plan with rollover votes.

 

by MRFred on 03/17/2010 05:10:55 PM EST

Not a joke: A corporation is running for Congress | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)
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