Mitt Romney famously announced in 2011 that, “Corporations are people, my friend.”

That was an absurd statement. It is lunacy to suggest that corporations should have the same rights and protections as human beings.

But what is even more absurd is the proposal now circulating in the Wisconsin Legislature to give corporations more rights and protections than people. Republican legislators, and some Democrats who are apparently in the service of the fossil fuel industry rather than the voters of Wisconsin, are proposing a bill that would create super-protections for oil, gas and energy-industry conglomerates that seek to build pipelines and other controversial projects.

The goal of the legislation, a Wisconsin variation on measures that have been promoted nationally by the shadowy, corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), would impose extreme penalties on Wisconsinites who protest pipelines and so-called critical infrastructure projects—even in cases where those protesters are legitimately concerned that these projects pose threats to the environment, tribal lands or public health and safety.