Saturday, February 23, 2013

Corporations Really Are People, My Friend...And Voters Too.

VultureizeThisWillard
RawMoneyVille


At least, potentially, in the great state of Montana.

Ian Milhouser of Think Progress has the bizarre, but true, story:

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...



Kind of scary to think of what would happen if some Wizard of Snooklandia were to do this for IPP Corp. Owners on, say, the Sunshine Coast.

Quite a few swing votes there, no?


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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

BC's Resort Municipality (Whistler & Jumbo Glacier) voting rules are 'interesting' too.

Kim said...

This is getting out of hand.

Corporate personhood is out of hand. The Corporation has more rights than the human (person).

We actually live in a time of such enlightenment that we allow basic living needs to be commodified. And traded. Genes to be owned.

Enough already.

Be Idle No More.

Kim said...

This is getting out of hand.

Corporate personhood is out of hand. The Corporation has more rights than the human (person).

We actually live in a time of such enlightenment that we allow basic living needs to be commodified. And traded. Genes to be owned.

Enough already.

Be Idle No More.

Kim said...

I'm getting to that age where those captcha codes are hard to read. I have to put on my glasses and squint and I sometimes can't crack the code. Just sayin' that's why my comment appears twice. Either that or Ross K. thinks I'm awesome!

RossK said...

Excellent point Anon-At-The-Top.

And 'Jumbo' has a great faux Twittmachine feed also.

____

Kim--

It's both!

(I have the same problem with the captcha thing)

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Eleanor Gregory said...

Non-resident property owners have had voting rights in municipal elections in Canada off and on in the past. Can't give you exactly when and where and when it stopped. Something requiring further research (recollection) on my part. I'll get back to you.

RossK said...

Thanks Eleanor.

Individual people I can understand.

But representatives of corporations?

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North Van's Grumps said...

Hmmmm.... if corporations get to vote would that mean that they would have to STOP lobbying?

Have you ever heard of an Individual, a single voter, approaching government officials to sway their views on the creation of new legislation, tweaking of existing legislation, just to gain a foothold on a lucrative contract... like say Excel Logistics snapping up the BC Liquor Distribution Branch in Vancouver.... one Voter could go for the whole shooting match and by just one bottle of liquor.

A voter, not a corporation, has an MLA to represent their concerns with the BC Government, his/her MLA is there to speed up the process of lost applications and other sundry items....

Would that then mean that if Corporations had access to both their MLA AND Government via lobbying then the door would be wide open for OUR names to be added to the Lobbyist Registry....

Who's Lobbying Who: December 2012

scotty on Denman said...

Subsidiaries make such handy ballot-box stuffers, too.
Derivativocracy Now!

motorcycleguy said...

Well, they kind of are working on a variation of actually voting...check out page 27 here...with the Zamboni bribe

http://www.scrd.ca/files/File/Administration/Minutes/2012/2012-JAN-26%20BRD%20MINUTES(1).pdf