Re: Supreme Court Interpretation of the 14th Amendment

[phlkolar]

I don't believe SCOTUS has ruled on the individual rights of a corporation issue.All of the interpretations are from a lesser court.

[Fear Itself]

Column in question:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...or-value-on-it

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, SCOTUS overruled the lower court in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which was based on the Fourteenth Amendment:

The majority argued that the First Amendment protects associations of individuals as well as individual speakers, and further that the First Amendment does not allow prohibitions of speech based on the identity of the speaker. Corporations, as associations of individuals, therefore have speech rights under the First Amendment. Because spending money is essential to disseminating speech Buckley v. Valeo, limiting a corporation's ability to spend money unconstitutionally limits the ability of its members to associate effectively and to speak on political issues.

So SCOTUS effectively argued corporations are indistinguishable from individuals.

[Terr]

Originally Posted by Fear Itself

So SCOTUS effectively argued corporations are indistinguishable from individuals.

Utterly wrong. In Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court effectively argued that speech is protected with no regard to source, since there is no speech source restriction in the Constitution. There is nothing in the decision that makes any kind of argument that a corporation is similar to an individual, much less that it is "indistinguishable" from one.

[Fear Itself]

Your argument appears to hinge on whether the court used the magic words, "Corporations are individuals."

The rest of us clearly understand the opinion of the court.

[etv78]

More specifically about the column-Are Birchers a subset of the people discussed in the column?

[Elendil's Heir]

I thought Birchers are just ardent anti-Commies. I've never read that they've taken any particular position on the Federal government's power to legislate or tax (although it wouldn't surprise me to learn that individual Birchers would be "sovereign citizen" types.)

[Fear Itself]

There is probably some overlap. The Birchers were also against the UN and anything that could be construed as world government.

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by Fear Itself

There is probably some overlap. The Birchers were also against the UN and anything that could be construed as world government.

Ah, yes. And flouridation, right?

[Mr Downtown]

Originally Posted by Fear Itself

The rest of us clearly understand the opinion of the court.

From your statement, I don't think you do. I'm curious as to whether you've even read the opinion?

[Fear Itself]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

From your statement, I don't think you do. I'm curious as to whether you've even read the opinion?

Yes, I have. Have you?

[Carl Pham]

Yeah, this is definitely a case where Cecil either displayed early Alzheimer's, or succumbed to the Chicago detachment from reality where political developments you disfavor are concerned.

The SCOTUS declared corporations are people? Really? So, for example, no accountant could assist a corporation in going out of business without being guilty of murder, except of course in Oregon, assuming there is some equivalent to the psychiatric evaluation required for assisted suicide...?

And a corporation gets a vote, right? No state can deny the right of GM to vote, right? Er...but Facebook, yes, because it's less than 18 years old...

Sure, I understand the statement is meant to be a provocative metaphor, a bit of rhetorical red meat hyperbole. Obviously what the Supreme Court did is say corporations are like people in the extremely restricted sense of having some First Amendment rights. (They obviously don't have full FA rights, even, because Congress makes laws, e.g. truth-in-advertising laws, or laws about what coporations must say on a prospectus, et cetera, that put all kinds of restrictions on corporate speech.)

Does that make a corporation into a person, effectively? Hard to see how. There's just a bit more to being a person than having FA rights, no?

Besides which, what they said is not so much that a corporation by some magical process is sort of like a person, but that if actual persons choose to exercise their FA rights through an organization, it doesn't matter what kind of organization it is. If the FA means government may not forbid 1 person from taking out an anti-Obama ad in the paper, nor 100 people from taking out 100 separate ads, nor 100 people from voluntarily pooling their money to take out 1 gigantic anti-Obama ad, nor 100 people forming an informal organization or club, paying dues, and voting to have the dues go to funding an anti-Obam ad -- because, in each case, people are exercising their FA rights through whatever organization they please -- then on what conceivable rational grounds can we say that if those 100 people first take out incorporation papers for their group, shazam! they now lose their right to do what was an inalienable core right just before they named themselves Foo, Incoporated instead of The Foo Club. You have to truly love splitting hairs -- or have an ulterior agenda -- to swallow that "logic."

[Ed Zotti]

Originally Posted by Carl Pham

The SCOTUS declared corporations are people? Really?

Really. To be precise, they have the same legal rights as people. This subject was addressed in:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...dered-a-person

It is of course trivially true that artificial persons can't be murdered and so on.

[doorhinge]

Originally Posted by Fear Itself

So SCOTUS effectively argued corporations are indistinguishable from individuals.

"Effectively" is the key word. Corporations - as associations of individuals but not as living breathing human beings - can not be prevented from expressing their political views thru the expenditure of money. The same holds true for unions, as an association of individuals, or the Loyal Order of the Moose, as an association of individuals.

Corporations can't get a drivers license, or a birth certificate, or use the EZ1040 form to file their taxes.

Corporations are only considered the same as individuals when it comes to spending money to express their freedom of expression for political campaigns.

[C K Dexter Haven]

Individuals can lie, that's part of freedom of speech too. Interesting to me will be whether "truth in advertising" laws will be cast aside: after all, corporations have the same freedom of speech rights as individuals, and so can't be held to any standards of truthfulness (unless they're under oath, of course.)

[Ed Zotti]

Originally Posted by doorhinge

"Effectively" is the key word. Corporations - as associations of individuals but not as living breathing human beings - can not be prevented from expressing their political views thru the expenditure of money. The same holds true for unions, as an association of individuals, or the Loyal Order of the Moose, as an association of individuals.

Corporations can't get a drivers license, or a birth certificate, or use the EZ1040 form to file their taxes.

Corporations are only considered the same as individuals when it comes to spending money to express their freedom of expression for political campaigns.

No, you've missed the point. Corporations aren't merely associations of human beings; they're "artificial persons" and as such entitled to equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment. This applies to everything, not just freedom of expression. If you're not buying Cecil's take on it, try this:

http://money.howstuffworks.com/corporation-person1.htm

[doorhinge]

Originally Posted by Ed Zotti

No, you've missed the point. Corporations aren't merely associations of human beings; they're "artificial persons" and as such entitled to equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment. This applies to everything, not just freedom of expression. If you're not buying Cecil's take on it, try this:

http://money.howstuffworks.com/corporation-person1.htm

Since corporations had been viewed as artificial persons for millennia, the debate over whether they should be afforded the same rights as humans had been raging long before the 14th Amendment was adopted.

This debate has been going on for a very long time. It seem to me that the people who want to change the way corporations are viewed by established law have to formulate a convincing argument (an argument that convinces a majority of the people who elect our elected representatives) that corporations should not be considered "artificial persons" any longer.

What will that take?

Should the SCOTUS be expected to simply rewrite the 14th? Congress wrote and rewrote campaign fianance laws. Congress screwed up and wrote some parts of the law in a manner that is unconstitutional. It's Congresses job to readdress the issue of corporate artificial personhood. Hopefully, to your approval.

[gamerunknown]

Originally Posted by doorhinge

Since corporations had been viewed as artificial persons for millennia

The definition and primary responsibilities of corporations have changed within the US's legal history. I'd like to know which types of corporations the article refers to that have been going for millennia, especially in regards to legislation (guilds?).

This documentary discusses their historic roles and purposes within a community and how those have changed.

[Veneriable Slacks]

Our servant gov't has managed to make us masters the slave. In law, persons, individuals, and yes, even human beings include just about any entity you can imagine. Only the rarely used term "natural person" (read part 14 of FDR's first official act where he helps the banksters steal everyones gold) signifies what us mere mortals think of as a person. I listened to Michael Badnarik, Libertaterian candidate for President speak about this and later verified what he said.

The bottom line is this: When it comes to gov't, every issue starts as a 1st (or 3rd, 4th, 6th, etc) amendment issue, but eventually becomes a 2nd amendment issue.

Well informed citizens are important for our republic; well armed citizens are even more important.

Veneriable Slacks
gun control is hitting your target

[doorhinge]

Originally Posted by gamerunknown

The definition and primary responsibilities of corporations have changed within the US's legal history. I'd like to know which types of corporations the article refers to that have been going for millennia, especially in regards to legislation (guilds?).

This documentary discusses their historic roles and purposes within a community and how those have changed.

The How Stuff Works article was written by Josh Clark. He's probably a better source for that information. I assume he's referring to the various corporations in the various forms they've taken over the millennia.

Before anything can be considered illegal, there must be a law against it. The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868. Corporations, in some form, already existed. Corporations already had legal standing. Now here's the really important part - The States and Congress approved the 14th as it was written. The SCOTUS didn't write the 14th but they have ruled based on its wording.

So here's what I propose, since laws can be written that allow union members to elect NOT to participate in their unions political contributions, it's also possible to write laws that allow stockholders and employees of corporations to elect NOT to allow their funds to be used for a corporations political contributions. The accounting and record keeping would be a might cumbersome.

Of course, that won't solve every problem. Media corporations, for instance. If NBC/MSNBC decides to actively campaign for Obama, should that also be illegal? They can call it news or commentary or interviews if they want but it's still free air time for a particular candidate or political position.

If people want to stop corporations from influencing elections, I think those people should start with the media corporations.

[TSBG]

If corporations enjoy the benefits of personhood, they should also suffer the consequences, like criminal penalties. Your product kills someone? Everyone involved goes to jail. That would end this corporate-personhood nonsense quickly enough.

[Tom Tildrum]

Originally Posted by Ed Zotti

Really. To be precise, they have the same legal rights as people.

This just isn't true. At a constitutional level, for instance, corporations have no Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Lower courts have extended this principle even to one-person corporations. At a state level, corporations (whether straight or gay) are denied the right to marry or adopt a child.

It would be accurate to say that the law extends many of the same rights and protections to corporations as it does to individuals. It would be more accurate to say that individuals retain many rights and protections when they associate as corporations. But to say simply that those rights are "the same" is not supportable.

[Fenris]

Just as an aside, this sort of idiotic political turd that the current Cecil decided to drop into the column (awkwardly and redundantly--you'd think that his editor would have told him "Dude, you dropped that stupid, irrelevant comment once, you don't need to repeat it again at the end") is exactly why I stopped reading Cecil.

The original Cecil was funny and kept above the fray, yeah, he shot one-liners at Reagan (and occasionally Carter) but he was smart enough to not deal with current hot-button, debatable political issues and treat them as though his opinion was fact. This shit is just sad. I used to love the column.

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by Tom Tildrum

...At a state level, corporations (whether straight or gay) are denied the right to marry or adopt a child....

It was mentioned in The Truman Show (yes, I know it's fiction) that the network had adopted Truman as an infant.

[Tom Tildrum]

Geez, Fenris, even Homer nods. Tweaking Ed is one thing, but Cecil is still the Perfect Master.

[Ed Zotti]

Originally Posted by Tom Tildrum

It would be more accurate to say that individuals retain many rights and protections when they associate as corporations.

That may be true in a practical sense, but you can't think about it that way legally. The legal fiction is that a corporation is an entity unto itself, independent of the humans who created it. If it weren't, it would afford its makers no protection against lawsuits. The corporation doesn't simply retain the rights of the human beings who filled out the incorporation papers; rather, it has its OWN rights, and also its own obligations, from which its human owners are shielded.

As for your first point, it's true the rights of corporations have fluctuated over the years and don't precisely coincide with those of human beings. Cecil said as much, and the fault for suggesting otherwise lies solely with me.

[Tom Tildrum]

Agreed. I think we're looking at the question like the blind men looking at the elephant, and seeing different aspects of it. And of course Cecil was right.

[Acsenray]

Originally Posted by Carl Pham

(They obviously don't have full FA rights, even, because Congress makes laws, e.g. truth-in-advertising laws, or laws about what coporations must say on a prospectus, et cetera, that put all kinds of restrictions on corporate speech.)

Originally Posted by C K Dexter Haven

Individuals can lie, that's part of freedom of speech too. Interesting to me will be whether "truth in advertising" laws will be cast aside: after all, corporations have the same freedom of speech rights as individuals, and so can't be held to any standards of truthfulness (unless they're under oath, of course.)

Has someone suggested that individual natural persons are not subject to false advertising laws, fraud laws, or other commercial regulations?

[TBG]

Originally Posted by Ed Zotti

No, you've missed the point. Corporations aren't merely associations of human beings; they're "artificial persons" and as such entitled to equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment. This applies to everything, not just freedom of expression. If you're not buying Cecil's take on it, try this:

http://money.howstuffworks.com/corporation-person1.htm

Hey, if anyone knows about "artificial persons" it's gotta be "Cecil".

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Fear Itself

Column in question:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...or-value-on-it

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, SCOTUS overruled the lower court in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which was based on the Fourteenth Amendment:So SCOTUS effectively argued corporations are indistinguishable from individuals.

Absolutely false.

The issue of corporate personhood is never mentioned in the Citizens United decision.

The decision simply said that SPEECH is protected. The source of the speech is irrelevant.

Corporations are simply tools created and used by people. Saying that corporations have no speech rights is like saying a website has no speech rights. It's irrelevant to whether speech can be censored.

[lance strongarm]

Cecil, your mention of corporate personhood is really ironic.

YOU engaged in the same sort of ridiculous, and false, conspiracy theories that you bashed in your article!

No court has ever said that corporations are people.

Corporations are, by definition, legal persons, but that's not the same thing as being a real person. Courts have said that certain laws apply to corporations the same way they do as people, in limited circumstances, but no court has ever said corporations are the same as people in every sense. That would be absurd, as you note - and that's why it didn't happen. Just as the U.S. never created fictional citizens with accounts in the Treasury!

You bashed one loony theory by repeating another one!

[Fear Itself]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

Absolutely false.

The issue of corporate personhood is never mentioned in the Citizens United decision.

If you are going to split hairs, I never mentioned corporate personhood.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

From your statement, I don't think you do. I'm curious as to whether you've even read the opinion?

I have.

I didn't find any reference to corporate personhood whatsoever.

I did find the actual arguments of the majority, which was that it doesn't matter where the speech comes from, it cannot be censored.

By the way, the ACLU filed an amicus brief in support of the majority ruling. That should at least make some people stop and think about it. Maybe you don't know as much as you think about this decision.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Fear Itself

If you are going to split hairs, I never mentioned corporate personhood.

Apparently YOU want to split hairs, so I'll amend my statement:

The decision never mentions the concept that corporations are indistinguishable from individuals.

or, if you prefer:

Arguing that corporations are indistinguishable from individuals in a particular legal sense is not the same as arguing that they are persons.

We are on a thread about the claim that a court declared corporations to be people. You supported that claim by citing this decision. I hope you're not trying to play word games now. But I'll let you speak for yourself.

Citizens United never mentions corporate personhood to support its view that speech by corporations cannot be censored merely because the source of speech is a corporation. That should cover all your bases.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Tom Tildrum

Agreed. I think we're looking at the question like the blind men looking at the elephant, and seeing different aspects of it. And of course Cecil was right.

Nope.

No court ever said that corporations are people. It said that certain laws apply to corporations in the same way as people, that's all.

And that makes sense. Otherwise, you couldn't sue a corporation, for instance. And when you do sue it, doesn't it have a right to an attorney, etc? to defend itself?

The whole point of corporations is to create fictional, limited "persons". That's what they are. And everybody understands - at least until people like Cecil started spewing the spew that others are spewing lately - that this isn't even remotely the same as saying that corporations are people in every sense of the word. That's obviously false, and nobody would say such a loony thing.

Sometimes - like the very legal nonsense Cecil was bashing in his column - some stories are so crazy that you have to stop and think about whether they're simply not true, instead of crazy. Yet this "corporations are people" stuff is the left's version of believing the nonsense on Faux News without questioning it.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by TSBG

If corporations enjoy the benefits of personhood, they should also suffer the consequences, like criminal penalties. Your product kills someone? Everyone involved goes to jail. That would end this corporate-personhood nonsense quickly enough.

Corporations can't go to jail because they aren't people.

And no court has ever said they are!

People who run corporations can go to jail though, even when they use corporate power or corporate funds to commit their crimes. Remember Enron, for instance? And if a person does something illegal within a corporation and it kills someone, they can go to jail. There is no "corporate immunity" for crimes.

[doorhinge]

Originally Posted by lance strongarm

No court ever said that corporations are people. It said that certain laws apply to corporations in the same way as people, that's all.

Well said! That's it in a nutshell.

Congress has written laws that apply to corporations. Corporations exist and they have to abide by certain rules and regulations.

CONGRESS wrote and rewrote campaign fianance laws and the SCOTUS ruled that the wording in those laws made some of the sections unconstitutional.

CONGRESS, not the SCOTUS, can, at any time, readdress the campaign fianance issue and CONGRESS can write a better, more comprehisive law that abides by the U.S. Constitution.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by doorhinge

Well said! That's it in a nutshell.

Congress has written laws that apply to corporations. Corporations exist and they have to abide by certain rules and regulations.

CONGRESS wrote and rewrote campaign fianance laws and the SCOTUS ruled that the wording in those laws made some of the sections unconstitutional.

CONGRESS, not the SCOTUS, can, at any time, readdress the campaign fianance issue and CONGRESS can write a better, more comprehisive law that abides by the U.S. Constitution.

Just a quibble - the laws had nothing to do with campaign finance, in that they didn't involve donations to or spending by campaigns.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by Ed Zotti

No, you've missed the point. Corporations aren't merely associations of human beings; they're "artificial persons" and as such entitled to equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment. This applies to everything, not just freedom of expression.

Well, not quite everything.

[lance strongarm]

Originally Posted by doorhinge

So here's what I propose, since laws can be written that allow union members to elect NOT to participate in their unions political contributions, it's also possible to write laws that allow stockholders and employees of corporations to elect NOT to allow their funds to be used for a corporations political contributions.

Ah, but no such law exists.

Union members cannot opt out of their dues being used for political activities (we are NOT talking about donations to campaigns - that is still forbidden by unions and corporations, which can only use voluntarily-donated money from PACs they sponsor). Unions can spend dues money on speech about politics all they want.

Only workers who are required to pay a fee to a union if they refuse to join it can get a reimbursement of the portion that pays for political activity.

But you have some reasonable points. If this is just about stockholders, they can vote for new management or sell their stock. An opt-out wouldn't be unreasonable though. And full disclosure of spending on politics wouldn't be unprecedented for publicly-held companies.