Citizens United: The Death Rattle of Jeffersonian Democracy
By Jamie York Our Constitution and Bill of Rights is a model for people in developing countries around the world. And rightly so! It gives citizens -- we the people -- the power and authority over government. People everywhere dream of this. As do we, since the reality has never caught up with the dream. Even so, in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the dream of democracy. In Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission , the high court ruled that corporations are persons, with the same First Amendment rights as living, breathing people. Corporations, which should still be considered artificial legal entities to conduct business on a limited scale, were given constitutional protection as though they were alive. The ruling itself did not even have to mention personhood at all, but the effect of this ruling has been deep and profound, and may lead to our undoing as a nation. The main thrust of the ruling allows unlimited corporate spending to influence the o...