Sometimes companies do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes expediency rules the day. Not infrequently, legal compulsion provides the motivation. Whatevs. The Detroit News reports that New Chrysler has donated Old Chrysler’s Political Action Committee (PAC) lobbying fund to the United Way. The semi-nationalized automaker will write checks to local chapters totaling $525,000. This also means that New ChryCo will not use union/taxpayer money to support/reward the election/re-election campaigns of politicians friendly to the unions/federal bailouts. Chrysler gets props for avoiding an obvious conflict of interest. Or it that confluence The ball’s now in their fully nationalized cross-town rival’s court. “GM transferred its PAC from the bankrupt Motors Liquidation Co. — the GM entity that remains in bankruptcy — to the new GM. The fund had $418,000 in cash through May 31. GM has said political contributions will not resume until next year at the earliest.” I’ve got an idea: how about never?
Personally I think that the only ones who should be allowed to make political contributions are individuals spending their personal funds. No companies, no unions, no foreign nations … just actual flesh and blood human beings. The legal tradition of treating corporations as “persons” for certain purposes was wrong headed from the beginning.
The legal tradition of treating corporations as “persons” for certain purposes was wrong headed from the beginning.
It’s a necessary consequence of limited liability, why we have corporations. Otherwise, you could sue each individual stockholder, and nobody wants to risk more than their own investment.
To my knowledge, just about every company has some legal structure that allows groups of people to act as one entity for the purpose of commerce.
As for political contributions, I’m pretty much absolute on the First Amendment and think that McCain-Finegold violates the Constitution.
As long as trial lawyers and unions can make political contributions, corporations need that right too. Trial lawyers gave almost a quarter billion dollars in political contributions in ’08, 80% to Democrats. Of union contributions, those from public employee unions are the most corrosive to democracy – just look at SEIU.
Speaking of lawyers, if more than 1/3 of the House and Senate were doctors and they refused to consider any health care reform, we’d say the conflict of interest was obvious. Tort reform is off the table because in the 111th Congress, 189 out of 535 members are lawyers.
Wow, this post and the one about GM replacing Opal with Chevy really have me thinking that the General might actually be more screwed than Chrysler. Is that a possibility? My opinion may also be influenced by that fact that there is a seemingly thriving Chrysler dealership in my area while the Chevy lots have dried up and blown away.
+1 Chrysler for taking the high road, even if it is legally unnecessary.