The Free Speech for People Amendment will do nothing to infringe freedom of speech or of the press. The First Amendment clearly prevents government suppression of “the press,” whether a corporation or not, and that is as it should be.
Regardless of whether the New York Times, Fox News, and other media are operated by people using the corporate form, the media are “press” under the First Amendment, and are not subject to restriction of expression or press activities. These corporations that meet the constitutional definition of press, of course will need to comply with laws regulating corporations, just as they do today. It is not an infringement on the freedom of the press to make the New York Times Company or Fox News’ parent corporation file SEC statements, obey securities “black-out” rules about public statements, and comply with other corporate regulations.
The American people, legislatures and the Court all are perfectly capable of distinguishing between corporate-funded campaign electioneering communications and the content, whether political or not, of the press and media. We do not need to pretend that all corporations become “press” whenever their executives want to influence the outcome of our elections or evade regulations.
