Charlie Bass Defends Mitt Romney’s ‘Corporations Are People’ Moment

Mitt Romney
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Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH) made news in August when he offered what appeared to be a pretty clear repudiation of Mitt Romney’s famous claim that “corporations are people, my friend.” Having now declared his support for the Republican presidential candidate, however, his take on the issue has gotten much more nuanced.

A tracker passes on this video from today’s event endorsing Romney in which Bass was asked his take on the corporate/person divide.

“I was referring to the issue on a legal basis,” he explained. “Corporations are by law unnatural persons, meaning they are made up of people but the entity itself is not a person.”

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t back Romney’s interpretation. “To clarify what I said: corporations are owned by people, they employ people, they provide jobs security for people, the health and welfare of a corporation has a direct impact on the quality of life of the people that work there,” he continued. “Technically a corporation is not a person per se and the question that was asked to me was specifically that. But the fact is strong employers mean strong secure jobs and that’s what Governor Romney is referring to and that’s what I believe.”

In August, Bass was asked at a town hall whether a company like Exxon is a person.

“To answer your question, the way you asked it, I don’t believe that companies are people,” he said before moving on.

Even then, however, Bass took pains not to disparage Romney: his spokesman told the local press that the answer was unrelated to the candidate’s quote. On Monday, Bass said he was not even aware of Romney’s “corporations are people” controversy when he took the question.

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