Beech Tree News Network

As we recently witnessed in our United States Senate race, ordinary voices were silenced by the spending of corporations. And now a Florida-based corporation wants to bring this same evil to Kentucky’s campaign finance laws.  The Kentucky AFL-CIO believes that business corporations should be limited in their political influence and continue their role as commercial institutions. Corporations are not people!

Protect My Check, the Florida-based corporation that led the assault on Kentucky’s unions and workers with illegal right-to-work ordinances is now trying to undermine Kentucky’s campaign finance laws.  They want to hand even more political and economic power to large corporations by urging the federal court to lift restrictions on the corporations that currently prevent them from directly contributing to elected state officials.

In a blatant display of cynicism and Orwellian double-speak these outside entities, funded by billionaire right-wing plutocrats, call their effort ‘protect my check’ when their entire purpose is to undermine the hard-earned paychecks of Kentuckians with their right-to-work county ordinance ploy.  Now they have the audacity to use the same moniker in their plan to give corporations virtually unlimited ability to buy politicians and political power in order to destroy labor unions, decrease wages and amass even greater wealth at the public’s expense.

It is not enough for the out-of-state interests that control and direct “Protect My Check” that the U.S. Supreme Court in their disastrous Citizens’ United decision has already handed corporations the ability to fund 527 and 501(c)(4) organizations with unlimited and undisclosed contributions that can then be spent directly supporting or opposing candidates.

“Protect My Check” claims that unions have more opportunity to influence elections with contributions when corporate contributions through various front groups and giving by corporate CEOs and top officer’s dwarfs union contributions by hundreds of millions of dollars. It should be noted that there is a fundamental distinction between the democratically governed communications among working people through labor unions and spending by corporations.  In a union, dollars do not vote—people do.

At least there will no longer be any doubt among the citizens and voters of Kentucky about the true purpose of “Protect My Check” which would be more accurately named “Protect My Corporation!”

Protect My Check has already attempted to influence Kentucky politicians with their offers of “free” legal representation for counties that adopted illegal county right-to-work ordinance and now they are attempting to use the federal courts to facilitate a corporate takeover of Kentucky’s entire political process.

We would do well to remember martyred Governor Goebel from Kenton County who asked “Are the corporations the masters or servants of the people?” Clearly Protect My Check intends to make them our masters.

 Bill Londrigan

Kentucky State AFL-CIO