Outrageous, you say? Never happen, my friend. Get a Clue, Sherlock!
Well, believe it or not, that very thing nearly happened last spring in the state of Montana. And check the date, this sorry story was NO April Fools prank.
Just our never-read the fine-print government at work. Afterall that's what Lobbyists get paid to do!
Steve Lavin, Montana Legislator, Didn't Mean To Give Corporations The Right To Vote
by John Celock, huffingtonpost.com -- 02/25/2013
[...]
State Rep. Steve Lavin (R-Kalispell) told The Huffington Post that he introduced the voting reform bill thinking it would grant non-resident property owners the ability to vote in local elections. He said he did not realize the impact of Section 2 of the bill, which gave corporations, firms and partnerships the right to vote in local elections in towns where they own property.
[...]
"I made a mistake of not paying enough attention to this bill," Lavin said. "It came through with that in there. This kind of surprised me in a way. I would have liked to amend that out of there."
[...]
After it was brought to his attention that he was proposing to give corporations the right to vote, Lavin said he wanted to strike that section from the legislation. But the House did not have time to handle an amendment to his bill in committee and the committee did not want to let the Senate handle the amendment process.
[...]
Lavin doesn't know yet if he will reintroduce a version of the bill in the future.
[...]
Fortunately this
Corporate Dis-Enfranchisement Bill, "died in a legislative committee" --
This Time! Ooops.
Maybe next time we ordinary (un-incorporated) people may not be so lucky.
Oh this is interesting. What that Montana Legislator played-off as "an oversight," ... just an amendment to legislation that showed up as a "request of a local constituent" -- may really have been "boil-plate legalese" of more dubious origins:
ALEC-er Would Give Corps the Right to Vote
posted on becauseican-2old2care.blogspot.com -- Feb 22, 2013
[From Think Progress]
This ALEC legislator was part of “once upon a time” ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force (Voter ID bill). This must be a piece of ALEC “model legislation” they keep hidden in the ALEC vault.
A bill introduced by Montana state Rep. Steve Lavin would give corporations the right to vote in municipal elections:
Provision for vote by corporate property owner. (1) Subject to subsection (2), if a firm, partnership, company, or corporation owns real property within the municipality, the president, vice president, secretary, or other designee of the entity is eligible to vote in a municipal election as provided in [section 1].
(2) The individual who is designated to vote by the entity is subject to the provisions of [section 1] and shall also provide to the election administrator documentation of the entity’s registration with the secretary of state under 35-1-217 and proof of the individual’s designation to vote on behalf of the entity.
[...]
Hardly reads like something John Doe jotted down on his daily bus ride, now does it?
Maybe that "next time," will happen sooner than we might think. (Are ALEC's Xerox Machines still functional?)
And once Corporations Corporate Persons DO get the Right to Vote -- how long will it be, before these Corporate entities manage to get their Votes doled out by the extent of their holdings?
"Made a Million Dollars in Profit last year? Well how about a Million Votes to go along with that?"
Afterall,
Money is Speech, my friend.
Money IS equal to Speech. As Mitt Willard Billionaire was only too eager to remind us, time after 47% time again. (It's
their turn, afterall ...)