This Guest OpEd by Paul Cienfuegos appeared in The Decorah Newspaper, June 15th, 2018.
Brief note by Community Rights US media team member Curt Hubatch: The title that Paul proposed to the editors at The Decorah Newspaper was, “Can we stop large corporations from interfering in our local elections? Yes we can!” They did not include the “Yes we can”, and ran it simply as, “Can we stop corporations interfering in elections?”
Why do We the People allow large business corporations to interfere in our constitutional right to vote? That’s exactly what happened on May 1, when Alliant Corporation effectively manipulated Decorah’s public debate (and likely its election result) by deliberately confusing and scaring Decorah voters with a series of mailers and advertisements – claiming that a public power system would cost a lot more, would be much less reliable, and would result in a net loss of renewable energy.
And they got away with their deceptive claims, all of which are easily disproven simply by examining the extensive experience of many other communities, including those in Iowa.
Most Americans don’t realize that corporate manipulation of our elections was once outlawed. From the American Revolution to the late 1800’s, corporations were prohibited from donating money or services to influence an election, or from lobbying government officials. In fact, this was still illegal in Wisconsin until 1953. So what happened? Why are large corporations allowed to interfere in our elections all the time? We can thank the United States Supreme Court for this supreme blunder. MORE…