# Supreme Court decision re: Campaign Finance Laws

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-decision-re-campaign-finance-laws/525883>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [January 21, 2010, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-decision-re-campaign-finance-laws/525883 "2010-01-21T19:37:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-decision-re-campaign-finance-laws/525883/41 "2010-01-22T21:11:22Z")

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There is a big difference between union and corporate influence. Union influence is based on the ability to motivate their members. Corporate influence is based on their money. This ruling will have a much smaller affect on union behavior than it will on corporate.

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**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/supreme-court-decision-re-campaign-finance-laws/525883/42 "2010-01-22T22:25:53Z")

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> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> See, there are two questions here:
> 
> 1. Can entities like corporations be “persons” under the law? That’s to say, do they have an independent legal identity independent of their members; can they be sued and sue, can they hold property, etc?
> 
> 2. If corporations are persons, do they have the rights guaranteed to persons under the Constitution?

I don’t think a focus on “personhood” is really salient to the _Citizens United_ decision, though. The Court did not find that corporations were “persons.” It referred to them as “associations” and stated that the First Amendment extends to such associations.

This is not to say that there are no grounds for criticizing the decision as a matter of law. I just don’t think this one is the right avenue of attack.

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