Law Commons^™

After Citizens United: Extending The Liberal Revolution To The Multinational Corporation, Daniel J.H. Greenwood

Daniel J.H. Greenwood

This Article proposes several routes to reverse Citizens United, the Supreme Court case holding that corporate campaign spending is “speech” protected by the First Amendment.

The core problem of Citizens United is that corporations are illegitimate participants in our politics. Corporate law requires corporate officers to pursue the corporate interest. They are thus disqualified from considering the central political questions of a democratic capitalist country: defining the rules of the market (which define corporate interests) and balancing profit against other, more important, values.

The high road to fixing Citizens United is a constitutional amendment to extend the fundamental insights …

Person, State Or Not: The Place Of Business Corporations In Our Constitutional Order, Daniel J.H. Greenwood

Daniel J.H. Greenwood

Business corporations are critical institutions in our democratic republican market-based economic order. The United States Constitution, however, is completely silent as to their status in our system. The Supreme Court has filled this silence by repeatedly granting corporations rights against the citizenry and its elected representatives.

Instead, we ought to view business corporations, like municipal corporations, as governance structures created by We the People to promote our general Welfare. On this social contract view, corporations should have the constitutional rights specified in the text: none. Instead, we should be debating which rights of citizens against governmental agencies should also apply …

Gaining Access: A State Lobbying Case Study, Trevor D. Dryer

Trevor D. Dryer

Although many articles, both in scholarly journals and in the popular press, have addressed the role of lobbyists, few have examined how the process actually works on the ground in state capitols across the country. Through interviews with registered lobbyists in California, this Article provides insight into the sur-prising effect of reform legislation on the actual practice of lobbying. For exam-ple, the interviewees claimed that reforms—such as legislative term limits or pro-hibitions on lobbyists making campaign contributions—have not changed the role money plays for many lobbyists in gaining access, and have actually increased the influence of the professional lobby. These …

Time To Dilute The Dilution Statute And What Not To Do When Opposing Legislation: Beyond A Comment On Professor Port's The "Unnatural" Expansion Of Trademark Rights: Is A Federal Dilution Statute Necessary?, Malla Pollack

Malla Pollack

This article has three goals: to state clearly the practical problems with the Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995, to suggest modifications to deal with these problems, and to explore why prior opposition pieces did not garner support from the uncommitted. This last project requires a subject for the dissection table. Because it won the coveted Ladas Memorial Award for the best trademark article in 1994 and because it was published by the Trademark Reporter just before Congress voted on the Act, this article focuses on Kenneth Port's article, "The 'Unnatural' Expansion of Trademark Rights: Is a Federal Dilution Statute …

How Charitable Organizations Influence Federal Tax Policy: "Rent-Seeking" Charities Or Virtuous Politicians?, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

Tax-exempt charitable organizations exert considerable influence over Congress, the Department of the Treasury, and the Internal Revenue Service in matters dealing with exemption from federal income tax and the tax deductibility of charitable contributions. This Article uses both public choice and public interest analysis to help identify various features of the charitable community and explain how exempt organizations weild political influence despite the restrictions placed on their activities under the tax code. Arguing that the influence of charitable organizations over tax policy can be explained from either a public choice or public interest vantage point, the Article concluds that the …