NCPIRG, in another anti-corporation rant, has sent out a grassroots alert urging people to fight against the evils of corporations exercising their free speech rights.
In the blast asking people to sign a petition to support the DISCLOSE Act, a federal bill designed to chill free speech, NCPIRG says:
In January, when the Supreme Court ruled that corporations could spend unlimited funds on elections, we knew what would happen. In August, Target, a national corporation, donated $150,000 to a Minnesota gubernatorial candidate.
One problem though: Target didn’t donate $150,000 to a gubernatorial candidate because direct contributions to candidates are prohibited by state law. It did apparently give $150,000 to an organization called MN Forward that supports or opposes candidates.
In the same email, NCPIRG tries to scare people by having a big headline saying “Don’t let corporations secretly influence our elections.”
The amusing thing is that the Target example is also an example of how corporations can’t secretly influence our elections–by NCPIRG’s own admission, it was Minnesota’s public records laws that made their contribution public. So much for secret contributions.
NCPIRG should at minimum immediately send an email correcting the error about the $150,000 contribution to the gubernatorial candidate.
