Hawaii passes law bypassing Citizens United, governor signs it | Hacker News Reader

Hawaii passes law bypassing Citizens United, governor signs it

ca.news.yahoo.com

57 pointspzxc18 comments

First state in the nation to do it (a few others are trying), a few days ago the Hawaii legislature passed, and today the Governor signed, a bill saying that CORPORATIONS DO NOT HAVE THE POWER TO BUY POLITICAL ADS

This takes PAC and SuperPAC money out of politics (at least in Hawaii) and gets around the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United vs FEC.

No it doesnt, it will not be upheld in court, as the Democratic Hawaiian AG even argues in the article

Does this extend to the GOP and DNC? They are both corporations, and politics may be a lot better if they were not able to advertise.

"Gets around"? Or places a state restriction on what the Supreme Court is going to consider to be "free speech"?

I expect this to be appealed to the Supreme Court, and for it to be ruled unconstitutional there.

This should be in the U.S. Constitution.

Aside from the change in the economic landscape, there's also the fact that they wrote it with the elite in mind (white male property owners), so they already had complete control.

But now we know better

At least voting has opened up to the general public. The pity there is that misinformation, tribalism, and ignorance does not make for a well-informed voter, and that problem is just getting worse.

Individuals should be able to get together and crowd fund a movie about a political figure without the government stopping them.

Are you saying corporations and PACs buying ads is the same as people pooling their monies to fund a movie?

Pretty much, yes.

A shareholder (i.e. part owner of the corporation) has chosen to "peaceably assemble" with other like minded individuals by buying stock. They have elected representatives (directors on the board of directors) to further the interests of the group.

Sometimes the group's interests include political issues. For example directors of Widget Corp may well want to promote a candidate running against the candidate running on a "Ban Widgets because they are 'addictive'" platform.

This is no different than people joining together to support candidates who are pro-choice or pro-"life". They pay dues and make donations to an organization (such as the Planned Parenthood Action Fund) which supports the individual's interests. The organization then decides who to support and makes donations or otherwise advance those those candidates' campaigns through a PAC. In some cases some of those individuals also make "in kind" contributions under the direct organized umbrella of the political entity (such as spending hours "door knocking" or "phone banking") that, combined with their cash donations to the candidate, exceed the $3,500 individual contribution limit.

Just because one assembled with others to further their financial interests doesn't suddenly mute them or take away their First Amendment rights. For example, some donate to the DSA because they think they or their family will benefit financially if the DSA candidates get elected and can push through certain legislation. Surely that their interest is, at least in part, financial does not mute them.

You are confusing non-profits with for-profit corporations. For profit corporations (the kind with shareholders) are legally required to behave selfishly (the profit motive) which means, in practice, that corporations are their own agents which act independently of the shareholder.

That’s because corporate board members and executives would be personally liable if they did anything but allow the corporation to act like a raging sociopath. That’s the definition of “fiduciary duty”. Corporations are, in effect, autonomous, unaligned evil AIs.

You can't have non-profit corporations donate to politics, because it's so easy for a corporation to finance a non-profit to do the donations for them.

That group can have the legal fiction of the corporation for liability reasons. They can also, separately, assemble as a group for political speech, each using their own rights as a person. That corporation is not a person and has no right to speech. Their group for political speech in turn represents them as people and does not shield them from liability.

We've unfortunately conflated this, to our detriment. Legal fictions don't have rights. People do.

Directors of Widget Corp can group together separately from Widget Corp and exercise their personal rights, or they can fuck off. Widget Corp isn't a person and has no rights.

Individuals, yes. For profit corporations are beholden to profit only, and thus their minds are sociopathic in nature. Therefore, they should not be allowed to, yet they can, and do, donate to super PACs.

You would not allow an evil AI robot to donate or vote just because it is “owned” by some other company or group of people, would you?

That’s what a company is; a non-human intelligent agent which operates autonomously according to an immoral code, with almost no restrictions on what it does. Hell, directors can be in personal legal jeopardy if they do anything but allow the corporate AI entity to act completely selfishly and immorally, because that’s how fiduciary duty is defined by law. So, evil naturally follows an inevitable consequence of the system.

Corporations are essentially autonomous, evil AIs that shareholders practically cannot realign. Their alignment is codified by law to put their own interests above all else.

And we let them out of the box.

We're conditioned to worship.

  In the church, to a vengeful God.
  To our brave warriors for being warriors.
  To our protectors for keeping us in our place.
  To our owners, for being so wonderful that God blessed them with their wealth.

They can do so without the protections of a corporation. You can take actions qua you as a person, and assume the liability for those actions. Or you can shield yourself behind a legal fiction, but that is not a person. It has no rights, only permissions granted to it. This is the way it should be, and has been corrupted by the Supreme Court.

One can certainly propose a Constitutional Convention and get two-thirds the state legislatures to agree or convince two-thirds of the US Senators and two-thirds of the US Representatives to advance an amendment to effectively eliminate the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment.

But I predict it will be tough sledding and even if that's successful, getting three-quarters of the state legislatures to ratify the resulting modifications will be even harder.

Although, incumbents might like the idea as it would increase their job security.

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