[EL] ALEC Boycott

[Mark Schmitt]

 Just for the record, not everyone on the pro-boycott side of this debate
would endorse the statement, "corporations need to be banished from the
political process." This argument was about whether boycotts were a
reasonable way for consumers to exercise their own political speech.
Corporate political giving can be moderately regulated, just like the
giving of individuals, but corporations do have a presumption of basic
speech rights, unrelated to whether we treat them legally as people or not.
(Those of us who work for corporations created explicitly for the purpose
of facilitating and amplifying political speech should be conscious of
that.)

And, yes, corporations have a lot of economic power that can distort the
democratic process, but it's also the case that a lot of corporate
political activity is just its lobbyists rewarding their friends, buying
access, etc. (As Steve Coll's excellent piece on Exxon-Mobil shows, the
vast majority of corporations give to both parties, with Exxon-Mobil a
notable exception.) Boycotts seem to have the effect of making corporations
look more closely at whether they really want to stand behind the political
activity they are supporting, and it seems that in this case, they don't.


Mark Schmitt
Senior Fellow, The Roosevelt Institute <http://www.newdeal20.org>
202/246-2350
gchat or Skype: schmitt.mark
@mschmitt9 <https://twitter.com/#%21/mschmitt9>

On 4/13/2012 3:37 PM, Nikki Willoughby wrote:

 Yes.****

** **

________________________________________________****

*NIKKI WILLOUGHBY* | @Nikki4CC <http://www.twitter.com/nikki4cc> |
nikki at commoncause.org  |  skype nikkiwdc
Common Cause — *Holding Power Accountable *| 202-736-5741 | 703-474-8670mobile
****

CommonCause.org <http://www.commoncause.org/> |
Facebook/CommonCause<http://www.facebook.com/commoncause>|
@CommonCause <http://www.twitter.com/commoncause> |
CommonBlog.com<http://www.commonblog.com/>
****

** **

*Please join us to** #Amend 2012 <http://www.amend2012.org/> **because only
people are people!*

** **

*From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [
mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>]
*On Behalf Of *Sean Parnell
*Sent:* Friday, April 13, 2012 2:57 PM
*To:* 'Bill Maurer'; Kathay Feng; JBoppjr at aol.com; schmitt.mark at gmail.com
*Cc:* law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
*Subject:* Re: [EL] ALEC Boycott****

** **

And I’m still unclear whether corporations need to be banished from the
political process because they’re too effective in advancing their
profit-seeking motive, or entirely ineffective and simply wasting
shareholder dollars on the personal whims and fancies of corporate officers.
****

** **

Sean Parnell****

President****

Impact Policy Management, LLC****

6411 Caleb Court****

Alexandria, VA  22315****

571-289-1374 (c)****

sean at impactpolicymanagement.com****
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20120414/4d219bc6/attachment.html>