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As we begin to digest the unbelievable Supreme Court decision from earlier today, it might be helpful to remember how this whole idea that corporations are entitled to the same rights as individuals began:
1886, in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a private corporation is a person and entitled to the legal rights and protections the Constitutions affords to any person. According to the official case record, Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite simply pronounced before the beginning of arguement in the case:
"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does."
The court reporter duly entered that into the summary record of the Court’s findings. Thus it was that a two-sentence assertion by a single judge elevated corporations to the status of persons under the law, prepared the way for the rise of global corporate rule, and thereby changed the course of history.
In the 22nd century, do you think people will look back on today’s Supreme Court ruling with the same distaste that we look back at this one from 1886? Does granting corporations the right to spend freely on political ads also have the potential to change history?
What’s on your mind tonight?
15 Comments
A corporation is not a natural person.
The Supreme Court reiterated that today.
But corporations do have an identity. No court has denied that.
A corporation has a federal tax ID number.
In about 1913, the Michigan Supreme Court held, in Dodge v. Ford Motor Company, that a corporation has inherent power to make charitable contributions.
The blogs’ take on this case is misguided.
The Supreme Court decision expands First Amendment rights. Which is good,
You want to constrain the marketplace of ideas, look to Breyer, Ginsburg, Sototmayer. They’ll do it for you.
No argument that corporations have an identity.
It’s my understanding that some of the confusion arises from the term ‘corpus’ [body], from which corporation is derived.
But a snake is also a ‘body’, and I think the question of the nature of the type of body that it has, and what ”rights” that ‘body’ ought to rightly be entitled to under law raises a whole host of issues that are now less resolved in the public mind than they were even one day ago.
Is ‘speech’ money?
The court seems to equate the two.
I’ve heard ‘money’ say some incredibly stupid things, but this one’s a doozy.
So now it’s OK that citizens of foreign countries have a say in our elections? You may not realize this, but people who sit on corporate boards are not necessarily U.S. citizens.
Gee, Art, if corporations are citizens, why don’t they have the right to vote?
Oh, yeah, they don’t need to vote anymore, they can just buy Congress and the Presidency.
PS. This ruling compounds two of the Court’s greatest idiocies. In addition to the “Corporation = Person” joke, this case continues the idea that “Money = Speech.”
This is the most activist Court in my lifetime. Earl Warren was a piker compated to Roberts.
Jim, I posted this on a different thread earlier today and all of sudden wiki has ‘alerts’ all over the page on it; good to see others are finally (I’ve been fighting ‘corporate personhood’ for several years now).
“Since the 1800s, legal personhood has been further construed to make it a citizen, resident, or domiciliary of a state (usually for purposes of personal jurisdiction). In Louisville, C. & C.R. Co. v. Letson, 2 How. 497, 558, 11 L.Ed. 353 (1844), the U.S. Supreme Court held that for the purposes of the case at hand, a corporation is “capable of being treated as a citizen of [the State which created it], as much as a natural person.” Ten years later, they reaffirmed the result of Letson, though on the somewhat different theory that “those who use the corporate name, and exercise the faculties conferred by it,” should be presumed conclusively to be citizens of the corporation’s State of incorporation. Marshall v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 16 How. 314, 329, 14 L.Ed. 953 (1854). These concepts have been superseded by statute, since U.S. jurisdictional statutes specifically address the domicile of corporations.”
Here are orgs people can use to fight this travesty:
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/
http://www.poclad.org/
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/21-10
As I tried to get Rep.Grayson to answer, the House has the capability to change the United States Code (U.S.C.); simply altering the basis of law -which is their perogative- the underpinnings of decisions enshrining corporate personhood could be removed.
Change this and it’s done http://uscode.house.gov/
§ 1. Words denoting number, gender, and so forth
“the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals; ”
“§ 8. “Person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual” as including born-alive infant
How Current is This?
(a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.
(b) As used in this section, the term “born alive”, with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after such expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.
(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being “born alive” as defined in this section.
Time for revolution.
Or at least a constitutional amendment that money is not speech.
We have to retake our democracy, whether by lawful means or non-.
Here’s the deal folks. And I’m way, way to the left of most of you. Off the cliff, really.
More political speech is better than less political speech.
Oh, I know, you’d like to suppress speech you don’t like.
Shit, if I were a mod here, I’d cut off everyone who says something I don’t like. Just kidding.
More speech is always better.
Really? Always? Even when the First Amendment is for sale? In addition, it is simply ludicrous to grant corporations individual freedoms when they bear no individual responsibility for anything. They get away with everything up to and including murder. A 12-year-old child can be tried for murder in this country, but a corporation can’t. Even younger children are taught that privileges go hand-in-hand with responsibilities.
Until the mid-1800′s, individual shareholders could be held financially responsible for the action of the corporation.
It’s hard to believe anyone would disagree with the principle that speech should not be suppressed. The problem is: what does that mean in this context? The rule the Supreme Court has announced is that everyone, individuals and corporations alike, can spend freely to support or oppose candidates for federal offices e.g. through advertisements. That sounds fair: everyone is treated the same way. The problem, of course, is that not everyone is in the same situation. Most people have somewhere between zero and a couple of hundred dollars to play with when it comes to advocating for their political candidate of choice. A few wealthy individuals and large corporations have millions. The people and corporations in the 2nd group benefit much more from the new rule than the rest of us do. It’s sort of like having a group of people, all of different heights ranging from 5 feet to 7 feet, giving each one a basketball and saying: you all have the equal right to try to dunk this ball through a hoop hanging 10 feet off the ground. This “equal” right will mean nothing to those of us who are not NBA-sized.
and what does it mean when only a few can effectively make their message known? we will have to count on other wealthy people/corps or the media or politicians to debunk the lies that would undoubtedly be spread. I don’t think the track record has been very good on this front (see e.g. health care reform and “death panels”)
This isn’t about censorship or punishing speech, it’s about recognizing the reality of the world we live in. In a world where the rule is that we all have the equal right to spend millions on political ads if we “choose” to do so, some people (and corps) are more equal than others.
It might also be about recognizing the safe limits of governmental power.
Things that look like a good idea tonight may not look so pretty in the morning.
sure, I’m all for limiting government power in many areas. But there are few absolutes–sometimes government power and regulation is a good thing see e.g. Wall Street and risky, exotic financial products. My point was simply that the Court’s decision doesn’t mean the same thing for all of us. People who don’t have money to spend on campaign ads don’t benefit from the decision. does that mean corporations should be prohibited from spending money to endorse or oppose candidates? I’m not sure. But I do think it’s odd to cheer the decision as a triumph for free speech when it’s only going to matter for corporations with the money to get their message out there. with a properly functioning media, it’s possible that bad ideas backed by corporate dollars could be debunked. I don’t think the current environment makes that likely. again, not sure whether this means corporate spending on political campaigns should be banned (keep in mind, corporations had been able to influence politics thru lobbying and PACs even before the Citizens United decision). Just saying that this decision won’t help ordinary people who don’t have money to spend on campaign ads.
The unconstitutional government that was elected by the coathanger court in 2000 has been shoving aside the sound, public-spirited governing principles that set up this country since Jan. 20 2001. this is another big chunk out of the U.S. – that was so well put together that it gave us the best country man had ever put together, until the criminal elements weaseled their way into power and began dismantling it.
I don’t disagree with a word you say.
Now, we can try the corporations for TREASON! Woo-Hoo!
Also, I can now use the same tax avoiding tactics they do. I can also base all my home expenses as business expenses. Heck, I can even buy a car and use it as a write-off.
All men are equal? Yep.