The PAC donated certain sums of money to various candidates at the state and federal level each election cycle. Curious, I called the person who ran the PAC and asked how they chose the candidates. He replied simply, "We'll support anyone who will vote consistent with the interests of BigCorp."
And effectively, that's how corporations donate money to political candidates.
> And effectively, that's how corporations donate money to political candidates.
Actually....no. Rules on PACs are different but still quite strict. They can donate a maximum of $5,000 to a candidate. In American politics, $5,000 is fucking nothing. In a contested senate election, that's a rounding error.
The way corporations influence elections is the same way rich individuals influence elections: Not by donating money to politicians (which are heavily capped), but through independent expenditures, which have no caps.
Look at this list: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00009638
"This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2012 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families."
So if we look at Microsoft, $800k went from Microsoft and related entities to Obama's campaign. That's a lot of money, and I have no doubt it bought real influence with Obama. But out of that $800k, at most $5k was the money that went directly from Microsoft's PAC to the Obama campaign. And that's well...nothing. It is 0.625% of the total amount given by Microsoft, 0.0007% of the total amount given to candidate Obama.
I have no doubt that BigCorp was very insistent about your contributing to the PAC; but they had no intention of using more than the barest fraction of that money to donate to the campaign of individual politicians. They couldn't, even if they wanted to. They would have been intending to spend it on much more effective (and unregulated) channels.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec... (third paragraph)
The question is not whether a corporation has rights similar to a natural person's -- in order to work at all, a corporation must have some of those rights. For example, it must have the right to own property, the right to enter into contracts, the right to bring cases in court, and so on.
The question is which set of rights corporations should have, and to what extent they can be regulated. Which is far from easy to sort out or solve with simple black-and-white rules.
In particular, free speech is a right of "every ... association representing a segment of American life and taking an active part in our political campaigns and discussions" [1] -- unions, guilds, consumer groups, religious groups, newspapers, political parties, and so forth. Those groups are made up of individuals united for a purpose, and their choosing to unite should not penalize them by restricting their ability to speak. Justice Kennedy made a great comment to this effect: "wealthy individuals and unincorporated associations can spend unlimited amounts .... Yet [under the Austin decision] certain disfavored associations of citizens — those that have taken on the corporate form — are penalized for engaging in the same political speech .... When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful." [2]
[0] Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, 1886. Yes, that's eighteen eighty six.
[1] US vs UAW, 1957
[2] Citizens United v FEC, 2010 - page 40 of Justice Kennedy's majority opinion
For example, take the Google, Microsoft, etc, NYT full page ad opposing NSA spying. That's precisely what Citizens United protects.
The majority decision did not declare that corporations are people. (Rather, they noted that treating corporations as people protects the real rights of actual people in some situations. If BP was not a legal person, they could not be sued after the Deepwater oil spill. If the New York Times was not a legal person, they would have no free speach rights. If Apple was not a legal person, it would not be illegal to take their cash reserves. We want a world where BP can be sued, the New York Times can publish what they want, and Apple cannot have their assets confiscated at a whim.)
They did not allow corporations to make unlimited political contributions. (Corporations still cannot make unlimited political contributions, and the case wasn't even about that. It was about independent expenditures, such as publishing a book about a candidate, or making a documentary about a political issue.)
They did not say that money is speech. (They said that money facilitates speech, and thus a sufficiently strict restriction on money would be a restriction on speech. Just because money is not speech doesn't mean it would be constitutional to say that politicians from one party can only spend $5 per election cycle on ads. Eqaully, money is not abortion, but under Roe v. Wade a restriction on spending any cash to obtain or perform an abortion would still be an unconstitutional restriction on abortion rights.)
Every specific claim in your comment is factually wrong.
Let's be clear: Under US law, a corporation cannot donate money to a candidate under any circumstance. They can, however, spend money independently of a candidate, for example, to produce newspaper or documentary, write and publish a book, hire a billboard, produce and air an ad, etc.
On the other hand, in Australia, Germany, the UK, corporations can make unlimited donations directly to politicians.
My, that does sound absurd.
(Really, I'm not sure what's worse: Your lack of understanding of how US law works, or your lack of understand of how non-US law works. You may understand how your local election laws work, but the world is a big place. Sweeping statements just make you look silly.)