The Seed Industry and Iowa Political Platforms 2008-2012 Part 12: Consumer Protection

Intellectual property protection is an extremely important to the seed industry.  It is good to see the call for sweeping reform that was present in the 2008 Democratic Platform has not reappeared.

The objection to the current legal status of corporations is mainly associated with the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court allows corporate campaign contributions to be considered as free speech.  I am not going to address that issue.  It is not seed specific.  The danger to business here is that reactions against corporate speech might spill over into some other corporate rights which are very basic to the modern world.  If this plank were to encouraging tampering with the ability of corporations to accumulate capital and put it to work over long periods of time, the implications for business would be broad indeed. 1

Republican 2008

Republican 2012

Democratic 2008

Democratic 2012

 

 

We support: 36. Reforming patent laws. 602

 

 

 

We oppose: 40. Corporations having constitutional status as individuals. 608

400. We oppose: Corporations having the same constitutional rights as people, and 873 money equaling free speech

 

 

We oppose: 41. Immunizing corporations from lawsuits. 609

 

See the The Seed Industry and Iowa Political Platforms tables in a broader format in the Structured Archive

Seed Notes:

1 John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge, The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea, Modern Library; 2003.

Seed Key Words:

Iowa, Political Platform,Democratic, Republican,Consumer Protection,regulatory,seed, seed industry.