Occupy Wall Street: Crafting A Constitutional Amendment To Stop The 1%
This is a guest post on Citizens United by Greg Colvin, who is a partner at the firm Adler & Colvin. It was originally published on OurFuture.org.
We've seen the signs and heard the chants: "Abolish Corporate Personhood!"
I'm very sympathetic to the cause of reducing the power of big business corporations to control our government, our economy, our consumer culture, our society, and our lives. We can't have democracy without a major shift of power into the hands of the people.
But would an amendment to remove all rights of corporations from the US Constitution accomplish that? Would there be unintended consequences?
There are two problems with a constitutional amendment that abolishes corporate personhood. One, it does too much, and two, it does too little.