To my mind, however, the first step is pretty obvious. Congress should prohibit any corporation from engaging in this new political spending if it has any non-American shareholders or owners. Because after all, foreigners have no 1st Amendment protections.

The “logic” behind the SCOTUS ruling is that a corporation composed of individuals ought to possess the legal attributes of its individual owners. Thus the same logic ought to require that partial foreign ownership renders the corporation a foreign body at least in part. The foreign parts of a corporation have no constitutional right to free speech. And since there is no practical way to distinguish the legal rights of the parts from the rights of the whole corporation (that presumption underpins the SCOTUS ruling), then it’s impossible to give American constitutional rights to part of a corporation but withhold them from another part.

Go for it I say.

That’s the way to keep the foreigners out of USA politics

It would still have an impact. And conservatives know it.

For example – if the media that is still broadcast over our airwaves is unimportant, why are conservatives constantly fulminating over the possibility of the Fairness Doctrine being resuscitated?

I’m not calling for the fairness doctrine … but I’m saying that we could easily require those we give our airwaves to to include significant free airtime for political advertising during campaign season. And “it wouldn’t have as much impact as it would have 30 years ago” is not really a good reason why that shouldn’t be done.

The Government has virtually no control over what is sent over a coax TV cable or what is sent over the Internet. Look at the polls. Young people, in particular, get most of their news from Jon Stewart and the Internet. They don’t watch Katie Couric.

In today’s world, even if you mandated that CBS or NBC or ABC or their affiliates must allow X amount of “free speech,” its impact would be miniscule compared to the impact it would have had 40 years ago when Walter Cronkite’s show on CBS was watched by 30 million people (at a time when the U.S. population was 20% smaller than today).

“Corporations enter political contest not in the public interest, the supposed purpose of the political parties, but for a solely business purpose of gaining a favor, an advantage, that will increase their bottom line. Nothing more. Business doesn’t contribute to political campaigns altruistically for the most part, with few execeptions like sinz’s Ben and Jerry’s example.”

I don’t see why that makes a difference. I might say, depending on my view point, that the NRA or NARAL don’t serve the public interest. Corporations are concerned with things that affect their bottom line: some of those may be admirable, some not, but most are probably neutral. I the corporation is something you approve of, like a hospital lobbying for more stem cell research or a green energy company, then you would say they serve the public interest. But people who think we can drill our way to energy independence think that removing restrictions on offshore drilling is in the public interest.

“My objection is the notion that corporations are “persons” just doesn’t pass my smell test.”

It makes sense to me. If a networks airs a controversial program, shouldn’t it have protection? Shouldn’t corporations have the rights to their patents and trademarks and their advertising? And if you grant them protection there, where do you start to say they don’t? When the CEO speaks in favor of a tax, or against a restriction, or for a subsidy that affects the business, is that ok? If Obama criticizes Wall Street, shouldn’t a Wall Street bank be able to issue a press release in disagreement? If the local city councilperson accuses a hospital of performing unsafe abortions, can they have any political statements in their response?

One prominent examples is CITGO Petroleum Company — once the American-born Cities Services Company, but purchased in 1990 by the Venezuelan government-owned Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. The Citizens United ruling could conceivably allow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has sharply criticized both of the past two U.S. presidents, to spend government funds to defeat an American political candidate, just by having CITGO buy TV ads bashing his target.

And it’s not just Chavez. The Saudi government owns Houston’s Saudi Refining Company and half of Motiva Enterprises. Lenovo, which bought IBM’s PC assets in 2004, is partially owned by the Chinese government’s Chinese Academy of Sciences. And Singapore’s APL Limited operates several U.S. port operations. A weakening of the limit on corporate giving could mean China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and any other country that owns companies that operate in the U.S. could also have significant sway in American electioneering.

Sinz – the problem isn’t that someone with money can flood the airwaves.

It’s that it takes immense amounts of money to get your message any viewing/hearing at all in a market like Boston.

My proposal isn’t aimed at limiting free speech … rather, it’s aimed at making sure that there is some measure of FREE speech for messages which have a certain level of broad support – and that that speech gets broadcast over the public airwaves.

Yes I do see danger. Corporations are now not just citizens they are Super-citizens. With the money at their disposal they have a fantastic advantage to drive the agenda both by buying airtime and by giving directly to candidates for office.

So in effect it is possible for them to own the message and the means of delivering their agenda.

We have made great strides in the protection of the environment from pollution (great lakes for example) this will cause a return to the bottom in many areas such as regulation of banking, drugs, agriculture, banking, investment and so on.

The corporations sure will not have the same end view in mind as normal flesh and blood citizens in regards to these areas. They want profit before anything, so if they own the politicians they control the framework.