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Originally posted by SignyM:
Interesting concept. You might call it "equal representation"

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Originally posted by SergeantX:

I've never understood why we allow local governments to grant special favors to corporations like this.

I can understand why local governments feel pressured to do it - if they don't, the next one will.

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The problem is when you get a company the size of Walmart... which dwarfs most small cities, many counties and even some states in terms of sheer economic power..."bargaining" is very unbalanced: David and Goliath (only in this scenario Goliath wins). So how do you get an entity "big enough" to go toe-to-toe with Walmart? I don't know....

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
I've nothing against Wal Mart being in business or making a profit; what I want them to do, though, is play by the same set of rules that the rest of us are forced to play by. You can't call it a "free" market if there's no concept of a level playing field. (And this isn't aimed at you, Sarge; I'm agreeing with you and illustrating the point)
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Which is why it may take the federal government to come in and reign them in. Hey, they did it to Ma Bell and Microsoft, right?

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Originally posted by rue:
The Constitution would not be the way to go - current legal thought is that the Constitutiton protects you from the federal government - not from businesses, private parties, or other levels of government like states, counties, cities etc.

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Originally posted by rue:
Not so. I wish I could remember the name of the case ... if you bump this up to keep it up top I'll look it up when I have the time ...

about 2 years ago the SCOTUS ruled that state employees could NOT go to the federal court system for discrimination under the 14th - they had to go to the state court system - effectively removing SCOTUS from jurisdiction for enforcing the 14th.

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but the state is in turn bound by the federal.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Hey, they did it to Ma Bell and Microsoft, right?

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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but the state is in turn bound by the federal.

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Not sure this is always the case. SCOTUS seems to draw a wobbly line. For example, while the Constitution prohibits the Federal government from establishing a religion, I'm not sure the states are similarly bound. They happen to have similar clauses in their respective constitutions, but....

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Originally posted by SergeantX:
I'm going to study up a bit on how the "equal protection" clause is usually interpreted. We might need a new amendment after all. But I do think it needs to be at the national level. There's just no incentive for state and local governments to "go first", otherwise they'd be sacrificing their own well-being on principle.

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According to Wikipedia:
The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws".[1] The Equal Protection Clause can be seen as an attempt to secure the promise of the United States' professed commitment to the proposition that "all men are created equal"[2] by empowering the judiciary to enforce that principle against the states.

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