Democracy Theme Park

Corporations & the Constitution

  • Look to Congress for Supreme Court Fix (2010)

    How is it unconstitutional for a state to require place-of-origin labels on meat? Regulate sale of its water? Establish worker protections stricter than federal standards? Where does the US Constitution say that states cannot require that toxic waste be sorted and labeled? Cannot include labor standards in state purchasing policy? Cannot make companies disclose what…

  • America Needs A Law Prohibiting Corporate Donations (1996)

    Bribery makes the discerning man blind and the just man give a crooked answer. (Exodus 23:8) Corporate civic, charitable, and educational “donations” of all kinds should be banned because they strangle open public debate, and contribute to the corporate colonization of our culture.

  • Corporations for the Seventh Generation, Part 2 (1996)

    Part II: Corporations for the Seventh Generation In view of the historic provisions noted in Part I that used to govern corporations, their representatives must be pleased that at least in this country, boycotts and divestment strategies are considered radical, and “dialoging” is the preferred mode of interaction. The rest of this paper is an…

  • Corporations for the Seventh Generation, Part 1 (1996)

    Part 1: Legacy Of The Founding Parents The people who founded this nation didn’t fight a war so that they could have a couple of “citizen representatives” sitting in on meetings of the British East India Company. They carried out a revolution in order to be free of oppression: corporate, governmental, or otherwise; and to…

  • Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing (1998)

    If you’re having trouble getting to sleep, you can count sheep, or read a book about the history of regulatory agencies. It may turn out to be the same thing. The nation’s first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), was established in 1887. Concerned citizens, having failed to solve their difficulties in more…

  • A Futures Market in Constitutional Rights? (1997)

    It’s the best of times, if you’re a rapacious corporation with money. It’s the worst of times, if you’re a citizen with democratic pretensions, or a living thing. Or a rock. Especially if you contain ore. Using money to buy power to get their way works great for corporations, what with the trade in human…

  • A Futures Market in Constitutional Rights? (1997)

    By Jane Anne Morris   It’s the best of times, if you’re a rapacious corporation with money. It’s the worst of times, if you’re a citizen with democratic pretensions, or a living thing. Or a rock. Especially if you contain ore. Using money to buy power to get their way works great for corporations, what…

  • The Pink Oleo Saga: Why So Many Good State Laws Are “Unconstitutional” (and What We Should Do About It) (2008)

    What’s pink, French, and unconstitutional? Hint: The story of this early “frankenfood” provides an advance script for the current global “free trade” frenzy. Over a century ago, its introduction was an occasion for greasing the skids toward establishing a U.S. “free trade” zone, one that is as devastating to local democracy as the WTO and…

  • (Citizens United) Court’s Campaign Money Ruling Is a Red Herring (2010)

    Before running off trying to counter the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), we ought to sort out what this decision does and does not do. The Citizens United decision does make our democracy theme park a little worse, the way having an atomic bomb dropped on your own…

  • Strip Corporations of their Cloaking Devices (1996)

    Who spends the most time in federal courts complaining that their “due process” and “equal protection under the law” rights have been violated? Pushy women? Uppity Blacks? Gray Panthers? Illegal Mexicans? The Sandhill Crane Militia? HIV-positive Navy gunners? You really don’t know, do you? None of the above. Plaintiffs in such cases are most often…

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Jane Anne Morris