Wednesday, April 07, 2010
No Action on Corporate Campaign Bills
Eleven corporate campaign bills were introduced this session in reaction to the January U.S. Supreme Court decision of Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission. The decision held that governments may not restrict the amount of independent expenditures made by corporations and unions in elections.
Opponents of the decision predicted that corporations would flood elections with independent campaign expenditures, and offered a host of bills to require stockholder approval of such expenditures, prohibit independent expenditures by companies doing business with the state, and other proposals to harass businesses from exercising their First Amendment rights.
The Chamber supported a bill to require reporting of independent expenditures, but opposed all of the other onerous bills. As of today, none of the bills have been acted on by the committees. Contact Ron Wineholt for further information at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
