Free Speech

February 12, 2010 by Nichole 

gavelReaders of our blogs know that our subject matter is intentionally apolitical so as to remain objective in our commentary on our areas of specialization, presentations and communication. We will depart from that policy today to offer an opinion about a related subject: Freedom of speech as it is affected by the recent Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to provide campaign financing. We object to that decision and support measures to counteract it as expressed in an op-ed piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. The article was written by Ralph Nader, a consumer advocate, and Robert Weissman (no relation) the president of Public Citizen.

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2 Responses to “Free Speech”

  1. Olivier Fontana on February 12th, 2010 6:49 pm

    Totally agree! Since when are corporations human being and therefore are covered by the 1st Amendment? This is not a good move from the supreme court.

  2. Todd Van Haaren on February 15th, 2010 7:52 am

    I appreciate that the blog often comments on the communications of public and political figures and does so without going into policy issues – you do a good job of it too. This post on the recent Supreme Court decision doesn’t meet the standard though – it doesn’t comment on communications methods and does on the particulars. Many people are legitimately concerned about what this decision will mean for their representative government. I hope it helps people to pay more attention to what has been occurring all along under current law before the decision. The decision affected 527 organizations specifically – the ones that run issue ads separately from the actual campaign organizations in an election. Corporations had not been able to donate to these 527s directly, but unions have. For example, in 2008, the Service Employees International Union donated $36,672,225 to a 527 (http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527contribs.php?cycle=2008). All this decision has done is level the playing field between unions (which are not people) and corporations (also not people). I’m not sure what the best approach is but I am glad some attention will finally be paid to this issue. It’s a mess, but to say it should go back to the way it was before the decision doesn’t fix the problem at all.
    My final comment is that this topic is probably better off in a more politically focused blog. You may risk straying from your audience’s image of you into an area where credibility has not been established.
    Thanks!

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