Corporate Speech Research Articles

statute which prohibited certain sorts of political expression by corporations. In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that corporate speech should be afforded the same First Amendment protection as individual speech. The case in question was First National Bank v. Bellotti. Massachusetts passed a statute which prohibited any political expression by corporations on matters not directly related to the business or assets of the corporation. Several corporations brought suit against the state of Massachusetts chal lenging the constitutionality of this statute. These corporations wished to express opinions on a proposed state referendum which would have directed the state legislature to enact a graduated personal income tax. The statute restricting corporate speech was not overturned until it reached the U.S. Supreme Court where a bare majority of the justices held that the State of Massachusetts had indeed violated the corporations' freedom of expression. Justice Powell, writing for the majority, argued that the value of free speech does not depend on the source of that speech, whether it be a corporation or an individual human being. In this paper, we will dispute the majority opinion of the Court. We agree that corporations have rights to free speech; but we argue that certain legal restrictions of these rights, especially political speech not concerned with a corporation's business interests, are morally permissible, consti tutionally legitimate, and, perhaps, even morally justified.

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