excerpted from the article: In vivid contrast, the majority overruled a 19-year-old precedent (Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce) that had lambasted the corporation, when it entered the political arena, because of ”the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public’s suport for the corporation’s political ideas.”
The problem with treating corporations as if they have a "right" to free speech and freedom of association is that they have a disproportionate amount of influence arising from their sheer size and aggregated wealth. We have other mechanisms to ensure that size and wealth do not override the voices of the small and poor in elections (look at how the Senate is constructed versus the House or how we have the electoral college to ensure that wealthier coastal states do not decide presidential elections).
And also, the fact that we grant any rights to corporations at all arises from a court stenographer's foot-note that later opened up loopholes for clever (although might I add shortsighted) lawyers in subsequent cases that eventually snowballed into granting rights to this nebulous entity. As Justice Stevens noted in his dissent to the Citizens United ruling, "A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it.” And yet, we worried that limiting the financial power of corporations will potentially infringe upon OUR (human) 1st Amendment rights. That is the problem for me. We created the corporate entity like a machine to serve our purposes; it does not exist with unalienable rights as we human beings do.
Who donates the most to campaigns, 501(3)(c) non-profits and charities or Fortune 1000 corporations whose explicit purpose is to generate profits for stakeholders?