Supreme Court Affirms Corporate Suffrage

[ThisThreadIsSatire]

(Satire from http://thedesperateblogger.com/2010/02/supreme-court-affirms-corporate-suffrage/)

In a controversial but predictable 5-4 ruling, the United States Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that as recognized legal entities, corporations may cast ballots in local, state, and federal elections. The landmark ruling follows closely on the heels of the Court’s recent ruling (by the same 5-4 majority) that corporations share the same rights of freedom of speech as individuals when it comes to supporting political candidates. In fact, the free-speech principal weighed prominently in this decision, in which the majority reasoned that voting is among the most sacred forms of freedom of expression.

Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas stated that, “Modern legal precedent would seem to affirm the corporation’s place as a legal entity with all of the rights, privileges and responsibilities of their flesh and blood counterparts, while 19th century precedent would support the apportionment of how their inherent suffrage rights may be exercised.” Under the ruling, corporations in existence for a minimum of eighteen years as of Election Day (the legal voting age for human citizens) would be entitled to one vote for each director and corporate officer, and three-fifths of one vote for each full-time worker.

Reaction on Capitol Hill was fiercely divided, as has become the norm, along party lines. While Democrats assailed the ruling as an attack on individual liberty, Republicans characterized it as a “victory for freedom of speech”. They also made the argument that corporate suffrage will spur job creation. House Majority Leader John Boehner, speaking to reporters outside a Cincinnati tanning salon offering a ‘President’s Day Special’, told reporters, “A serendipitous consequence of this landmark ruling is that it provides great incentives for job creation at no cost to taxpayers. The more people corporations hire, and the more part-time jobs that they turn into full-time jobs, the more votes they get. It’s a win-win.”

But in an occurence seldom seen in Washington, the ruling is also proving divisive along Chamber lines, where House Republicans are expected to join with Democrats in support of a measure which could force the High Court to revisit the parameters of corporate suffrage in the future.

At issue is where corporate votes will be cast. Language in the ruling issued today would suggest, but do not firmly state, that votes would be cast in the state of incorporation. Under the legislation proposed by Democrats however, corporations would be forced to cast their ballots “under the set forth rules of apportionment, but in proportion to the localities and states where the corresponding sub-entities are employed”. In other words, if 1,000 ’sub-entities’ (meaning ‘employees’ or ‘workers’) are employed in State ‘A’ and another 1,000 are employed in State ‘B’, the corporation would have 600 votes in each of those states, regardless of its state of incorporation. Several House Republicans expressed their willingness to “keep an open mind” with respect to the Democrats’ proposal after it was pointed out to them that the next time redistricting occurs, 213 of the 434 House seats not currently apportioned to Delaware (where many large companies incorporate for tax purposes,) would be moved there.

According to M. Eileen O’Sullivan, a Senior Policy Analyst with the Brookings Institution, House Republicans will most likely support the bill. “While they are philosophically opposed to the principles of the legislation and gastro-intestinally opposed to any measure likely to be supported by the President, they nonetheless will support this effort so that they may later use it as a prop they can point to in defense of attacks that they are overly partisan — all the while being secure in the knowledge that this bill will be as dead on arrival in the Senate as just about everything else the House has passed in the last year”.

[Occulus]

1. The saddest part about this post is

that I had to check the originating site to make certain it was satire.

[valerief]

4. Damn, you're right. Can't tell anymore. nt

[ck4829]

2. How long before parody becomes reality?

[ThisThreadIsSatire]

3. The line is getting really blurred... nt

[Swamp Rat]

5. This will cause a revolution, or else forget about democracy.

Even my conservative friends and family hate this.

Politicians who vote for this may encounter severe problems in the future.