A corporation can be dissolved. But that’s not a necessary trait of personhood anyway. In fact, that they don’t die is evidence of their personhood, because they still can exist even if everyone who founded them is dead. A corporation is legally a separate entity from its members, and that makes it a person.
We are edging close to corporate existentialism here. That way lies madness.
I don’t entirely understand what you mean. Could you explain?
Its at least half in jest, but with the humor beaten out of it, it remains true that pretending that an abstract entity, a legal contraption, is a person…well, its ridiculous, isn’t it? I’m a person, you’re a person, a corporation is not a person, nor is a replicant or a hoo-doo. The status of zombies, I grant, might be subject to refinement.
Thanks for filling me in on the background regarding the 14th amendment. And, for the record, I’m happy to treat labor unions and corporations the same when it comes to campaign finance law.
Corporations are artificial persons, and have some similar rights and some different rights. For example, the Court left in place the restrictions on corporations for direct campaign contributions – that seems pretty inconsistent right there.
Similarly, corporations can’t invoke a right not to incriminate itself – a corporation, for example, couldn’t refuse to have management appear in a court case that has accused the corporation of wrongdoing, and it couldn’t refuse to pony up incriminating documents. If there are people accused as part of that investigation, they could invoke the fifth amendment to protect themselves, but not to protect the corporation. Of course, corporations also have a different tax code from natural people. Corporations can be bought and sold, people cannot. Corporations can live forever, people cannot. Corporations are restricted from certain kinds of assembly (anti-trust laws for example). I don’t know how a second amendment right for corporations would work.
If the tax code can be different, surely other laws can be applied differently as well.
They could not pass legislation to accomplish what the corporations wanted. Personhood and all the other rulings that make corporations above the law have been achieved in court cases. They made a run around the people ,congressmen and senators. They had Bush stack the court with 3 ex-corporate attorneys and Scalias caddy, Thomas. They are young enough to keep this shit up for a long time. I fear for America.
Sure. And, I mean, it’s not inevitable that the court decide this the way they did, but it’s not crazy either.
Actually, I never said it was crazy, just that it was an activist decision, decided by several justices who claim to be no such thing. This decision seems so clearly an activist decision to me.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about here. George H W Bush appointed 2 justices (Souter and Thomas), and George W Bush appointed 2 justices (Roberts and Alito), so neither Bush individually stacked the court with 3 justices.
Also, none of the members of the current Supreme Court are really corporate attorneys. Roberts (appointed by Bush), Stevens (not appointed by Bush), Scalia (not appointed by Bush), Kennedy (not appointed by Bush), and Sotomayor (not appointed by Bush) were all in private practice for a while, and counted corporations among their clients. Is that what you mean? The only one who was ever in-house for a corporation was Ginsburg, who was counsel for the ACLU for a time.
I don’t think it is, though. Did you read the decision? It finds its roots in established precedence. Stare decisis is sort of the opposite of activism.
My understanding from legal beagles is that this decision overturns a previous decision. So stark staring decisis doesn’t enter into it.
Unions have tremendous political influence and play a major role in every election. The payoff is clearly seen in policy decisions. The GM bailout gave unions preference over bond holders. The current health care bill waves taxes for expensive union policies.
Their support has been an integral part of politics for at least the last 50 years.
Of course, that doesn’t contradict what he said at all.
He posts enough absurdities that critical responses should at least be substantive, doncha think?
It reverses Austin, but Austin itself reversed Wisconsin Right to Life and Bellotti.
It’s the same right. Expressing themselves through a group with other people sharing similar interests is a form of expressing themselves. By allowing people to express themselves in one form, but not in another potent form, their ability to express themselves is being infringed on.
Suppose someone is in favor of drilling for oil in Alaska because it represents his interests as a shareholder of a major oil company, for example. By banning the corporation, it’s hampering the guy’s ability to express his viewpoint as a member of this preexisting group with joint interests. And so on with unions.
I’ve not read the decision so forgive me if I’m wrong. But I would be shocked if the decision rested in any way on the notion that a corporation itself has free speech rights. That would be completely ludicrous.
A corporation is treated as a person in financial matters. That has nothing whatsoever to do with rights.
Pretty sure that is precisely what it is saying. A corporation = person. They both have free speech rights (subject to the usual caveats of libel/slander/etc.) as distinct entities.
I think the language is confusing people. See one law professor’s take on the issue (from 2004).
I forgive you.
The case was Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, and the Court ruled for Citizens United, not anyone who worked for Citizens United. They ruled that, as a corporate person, it has the constitutional right to free speech. (Although the Court left intact restrictions on corporate giving to candidates – I’m not sure how to figure that out.)
It overturned two precedents, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce from 1990 and McConnell vs. Federal Election Commission, from 2003. In the 2003 case, O’Connor was in the majority upholding most of the McCain-Feingold law. Looks like when she was replaced, the new majority thought they could overturn the provisions of the law they didn’t like and actively seeked out this case – wait, did I say “actively”? Whoops! Not these guys, no sir.
Not confusing to me. Corporations are treated as persons for some things (they can own property, enter into agreements, sue and be sued) but not for other things (they can’t vote, they have a different tax code). The question in this case is, should corporations be treated the same as natural persons for this part of election law?
That is so long ago. Union power and money has dwindled. The corporations however sicced 1500 lobbyists on the politicians to fight the health care bill. 1500 . Now that will fade into the good old days. They will put out fake documentaries, call them factual, and run them on TV over and over. Corporations have the money. They have the networks. They have the radio stations. There will not be equal access to the people. It will be very, ,very one sided. Even more than it is now. How can you fear unions? Do you hear pro-union stuff every day? The newspapers killed unions in their field long ago. All the TV stations are corporate owned conglomerates with tentacles in radio, tv, and newspapers across the country. This has become a mess .I am glad you can convince yourself that unions are the culprits in this. it is absurd.
Of course foreign countries can become American corporations for a few bucks and spend unlimited amounts of money on our politicians. I am sure you have twisted that into a good thing too. We will have politics by money more than ever.