Because of an obscure foot note in the annals of the SCOTUS, corporations are considered persons for all intensive purposes. But unlike real people, they can’t die, are not subject to criminal prosecution (members can be, but corporation can’t), and they can derive their membership from inside and outside the country (there’s no requirement that an American be the head of a corporation). Their large cash reserves and departments of lawyers can influence policies on a massive scale, and they have no reason to obey any social morals. Instead, they are semi-parasitic entities on our society, contributing as little as possible for maximum gain (which is not a bad thing. We all do that to an extent, just not to the same effect a corporation can). If you have any doubt, look at how copyright law has been manipulated and extended ad-infinitum to keep content owned (since they don’t actually create) by the corporation out of the public domain and protected by our government against infringement (I’m looking at you Disney!).
There was hope. The McCain-Feingold bill and prior SCOTUS precedent put limits on corporations. This meant that corporations, while still considered a person, were limited by what they could spend on any given election within certain periods of time. So corporation X couldn’t spend millions to get candidate Y elected because candidate Y is willing to give them no-bid contracts.
But that changed today. The SCOTUS issued a ruling on the Citizens United v. FEC case which basically says that corporations (and unions), because they are have personhood, are allowed the same rights as anyone else, including the First Amendment, which means that there are no limits for them.
To put this in perspective, if a quarter of the people in the state of Alaska contributed $100 each to a Congressional Senator candidate’s campaign that comes out to almost $17.5 million. While that is not exactly chump change, it is small potatoes for any of the Fortune 500 who might have a vested interest in some Alaskan resource. And that’s just a Federal election. Imagine how much a corporation could out-spend on local elections. They could probably get a complete moron elected to be Governor.
Justice Stevens had this to say in the dissenting opinion:
. . . . corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their “personhood” often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.
I can’t agree more. With this ruling, democracy died a little bit more today and we’ve moved a little farther towards a world where only corporations have a vote.
References:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood_debate