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Corporations Are Not People, L.A. City Council Unanimously Declares (Stephen Colbert Begs to Differ)

Categories: Politics

Thumbnail image for stephen colbert.JPG
Colbert is going to be mad at the L.A. City Council.
The L.A. City Council today voted to support the idea that corporations do not share the rights of individual Americans under the U.S. Constitution.

Occupy L.A. demonstrators were in the house when the council took its vote.

The move comes after the 2010 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court granting corporations free speech rights that allow them to fund big-money campaign ads that some had sought to limit. And ...

... it comes after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently declared that "corporations are people" too. To which news-comedian Stephen Colbert has replied with a "Corporations are People" campaign on Comedy Central, complete with the stance that parents should let their daughters marry corporations.

Anyway, the council unanimously approved a motion that supports federal legislation to downgrade the notion of corporate personhood, according to the City Maven.

Councilman and would-be mayor Eric Garcetti is quoted as saying:

With our economy reeling, individual people have less and less of a role, it seems, in America these days. Unless there are big changes, your voice is only as loud as your bank account and it's big corporations that have the largest bank accounts.

The vote was clearly supported by the occupiers in the house.

The council, though, is always good at supporting things that don't require it to put its money where its mouth is, from an essentially toothless ban on business with Arizona over its controversial immigration law, to yesterday's lack-of-a-serious move on punishing corporate banks for their ethical lapses.

Good job, City Council. Now if you could actually do some work ...

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

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4 comments
Notr8ed
Notr8ed

Actually Colbert is against "corporations are people". Get your story straight.

John Erik Hanson
John Erik Hanson

the judge who wrote the decision on union pacific railroad vs santa clara county in 1888, the decision used as precedent to treat corporations as people, wanted the opposite, but his secretary added a footnote after he died. To say that corporations have ethical lapses is like saying Jesus didn't kill people because he ran out of ammo.

Frawsty
Frawsty

Hey Dennis, for once I completely agree with you....it would be good if they city council would actually do some work. The current city council is the biggest bunch of overpaid corrupt do- nothing whiners ever to hold office in LA (with the possible exception of the current Mayor of LA). Instead of passing useless resolutions against greedy corporations (the same ones that fund their re-election campaigns, maybe they should impose some controls over the greedy DWP.

la_weakly
la_weakly

The democratic equivalent of "cool dad". 

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