Statement of Ralph Nader on Supreme Court Pro-Corporate Decision

Ralph Nader

June 25, 2012

In reversing the judgment of the Supreme Court of Montana [1] that found corporate independent expenditures in elections to be corrupting, the usual “gang of five” majority on the Supreme Court continued its judicial drive to change the meaning of the preamble to our Constitution from “we the people” to “we the corporations.” This trampling of a state’s right to police corporate corruption would not have sat well with the “conservative’s conservative,” the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who made his views on First Amendment rights for corporations very clear in his historic dissent in Pacific Gas and Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Commission[2]. Justice Rehnquist wrote the: “Extension of the individual freedom of conscience decisions to business corporations strains the rationale of those cases beyond the breaking point.” As Rehnquist explained: “To ascribe to such artificial entities an “intellect’ or “mind’ for freedom of conscience purposes is to confuse metaphor with reality.” His dissent should instruct the present corporatist (not conservative) Court majority.