The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free excercise thereof..."

The intent of this amendment, in the words of Thomas Jefferson is "building a wall of separation between Church & State".

This "wall of separation" has two primary effects:  1) the State cannot establish or support any particular religion, and 2) the State cannot restrict the "free excercise" of individual's religious beliefs.

I found Justice Hugo Black's dissenting opinion in this 1938 case to be an extremely clear and convincing argument that corporate personhood was NOT intended to be created by the 14th Amendment.  Below is an extensive excerpt from Black's dissenting opinion.  If you don't have time to read it, just scan down and read the sections I put in bold.

CONNECTICUT GENERAL LIFE INS. CO. v. JOHNSON, 303 U.S. 77 (1938)

Decided Jan. 31, 1938.

Mr. Justice BLACK (dissenting). [emphasis added]

"I do not believe the word 'person' in the Fourteenth Amendment includes corporations. 'The doctrine of stare decisis, however appropriate and even necessary at times, has only a limited application in the field of constitutional law.'  This Court has many times changed its interpretations of the Constitution when the conclusion was reached that an improper construction had been adopted.  Only recently the case of West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 , 57 S.Ct. 578, 108 A.L.R. 1330, expressly overruled a previous interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment which had long blocked state minimum wage legislation. When a statute is declared by this Court to be unconstitutional, the decision until reversed stands as a barrier against the adoption of similar legislation. A constitutional interpretation that is wrong should not stand. I believe this Court should now overrule previous decisions which interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to include corporations.

With the unfortunate loss of State Treasurer Ben Westlund, candidates had to scramble during these last two days to file for office.  The Governor appointed Multnomah County Commission Chair Ted Wheeler to fill the State Treasurer spot, leaving his County Chair position, so Multnomah County Commissioner Jeff Cogen filed for County Chair leaving his County Commission seat open.  This makes for many new races to watch, and participate in.

Measures 66 & 67 on Oregon's ballot in January may seem complex, but there are some simiple formulas to break it down into understandable numbers.  Oregon state budget services that would be cut if the measures fail is a whole seperate discussion.  The purpose of this post is to make it easier for people to understand the tax impacts on various types of tax payers.

There are four changes made by the two measures:

I accomplished what I intended to do, which was to use this opportunity to advocate strongly for single payer health care.  As reported in Willamette Week -