Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) criticized a proposed constitutional amendment to eliminate corporate personhood rights on Friday, calling the idea "absurd."
The amendment, proposed by Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Tuesday, would establish that corporations are not people with constitutional rights. This would overturn the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, which holds that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited funds on political campaigns as long as that spending is independent from candidates and political parties.
After McConnell gave a speech on the First Amendment at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington Free Beacon reporter asked him about the Democrats' proposal.
"They were not uncomfortable with corporate free speech when corporations that owned newspapers or television stations were engaging in it," McConnell said. "They only become uncomfortable with it when the Supreme Court said, 'Why should there be a carve-out for corporations that own the media outlet and for no one else?' It's an absurd proposal and it won't go anywhere."
McConnell made several strong comments during Friday's AEI event, from accusing the Obama administration of pushing a "culture of intimidation" and stifling free speech, to sparring with AEI scholar Norm Ornstein, saying he's been "consistently wrong on almost everything."
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