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Author Topic:   Corporate Personhood
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 61 of 93 (638347)
10-21-2011 4:07 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by crashfrog
10-21-2011 3:59 PM


Re: Not personhood, corporathood
I think speech is considered speech, and I don't understand how you restrict the ability of a corporation to hire certain kinds of speech on its behalf without infringing on the rights of a person who works for the corporation to hire certain kinds of speech.
Using whose money? If it's his own, then he's not doing it qua employee of the corporation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by crashfrog, posted 10-21-2011 3:59 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 63 by crashfrog, posted 10-21-2011 4:37 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Bailey
Member (Idle past 4370 days)
Posts: 574
From: Earth
Joined: 08-24-2003


(1)
Message 62 of 93 (638348)
10-21-2011 4:22 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by crashfrog
10-19-2011 2:03 PM


Observing the Personification of Citizenship
If corporations were dissolved, people would still be able to own property together in groups. Instead, those groups would be partnerships rather than corporations.
So, instead of corporate personhood we'd have partnership personhood. I don't understand what we'd gain. You'd still have enormous mega-partnerships making mega-donations to influence the political process.
I'm a little confused that in your second post, you seem to be shifting your concern from forfeiture abuse to corporate interference in the political process. Which problem do you want to address? Both?
... I only mention interference in the political process because that's supposed to be the major point in favor of getting rid of corporate personhood, but I don't see how it changes anything to have partnerships instead of corporations in that regard. I'm struggling to see any difference at all.
I'd like to put forth a disclaimer, in that I am not - by any measure, an astute political analyst. What follows is more or less an attempt to explore the ramifications of how a sovereign nation may seemingly legislate away the personification of its citizenship. It's a bit longer than I intended, so my apologies go out to those who decide to read on.
Also with any luck I can become more familiar with these issues and understand them better than I currently do
The line of questioning below presupposes America's political process may be somehow undermined as access to certain rights traditionally reserved for United States citizens become available to partnerships and corporate entities (providing they meet the minimum requirements set forth by the legislative definition given toward the status of 'personhood'). Quick background - millions of dollars are spent every election season on various communications supporting or opposing candidates or ballot measures, which become otherwise known as 'targets' and these expenditures - performed without coordinating or consulting with the target, are a commonplace practice known as independent spending.
Generally speaking, there are two forms of independent spending.
The first - independent expenditure may be seen as communication that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly and specifically identified political target. Respectively, electioneering communication is communication that occurs near an election and identifies a target while not expressly advocating the election or defeat of the target. That said, at the federal level, the primary source of campaign funds is comprised by individuals in the form of the aforementioned actualized United States citizen, with political action committees positioning themselves a distant second. Accordingly, contributions from both are limited, with direct contributions from corporations and labor unions prohibited.
Enter to the fray, the Supreme Court's recently overturned twenty something year old ruling which previously permitted state laws effectively prohibiting corporations and unions from using money from their general treasuries to then legally produce and run their own campaign ads. Perhaps the original legislation could have been viewed as a check or a balance, providing finance could somehow summon power within a political landscape. Anyhow, concerns quickly arose.
It was predicted actions of this nature may unleash a torrent of corporate and union cash into the political realm, with the potential to establish a uniquely distinct paradigm capable of transforming how congressional and presidential campaigns are executed in the future (i.e. an unequalized electoral process). One may argue a dynamic in this fashion may perhaps serve as a detriment towards carbon based, air breathing 'people' - most specifically the legal citizen of a sovereign nation, considering a corporation - as a 'person', does not seem to share much essential commonality (love o' country?) with actual people and citizens (i.e. they are not flesh or blood, nor have they the spirit of life, nay do they even shit or pay taxes, etc.).
Regardless, an immediate consequence of these decisions would seem to be an overall increase in speech, with this increase primarily benefiting only groups advantaged by the liberalization of laws governing independent expenditures (i.e. individuals, corporations, and groups not governed by Federal Election Commission contribution limits). For instance, labor unions (i.e. AFSCME), trade groups (i.e. U.S. Chamber o' Commerce), and social welfare nonprofits which organize under Section 501(c)(4) of the internal revenue code (i.e. NRA) needn't disclose donors.
While these groups were once prohibited from explicitly calling for a federal candidate's election or defeat prior to the 2010 Supreme Court ruling, or sponsoring ads serving as the functional equivalent of such express advocacy, such is no longer the case. By the supreme court's legislative repeal, the United States government effectively granted more - if unequal, freedom towards all of these organizations to discuss and promote political views close to elections (although 501(c)(4) groups still have to observe IRS guidelines restricting any main focus toward partisan politics).
Yet, this naturally places traditional political speakers - like candidates and parties, with an apparent disadvantage.
This dilemma seemingly presents itself as these various independent individuals and groups which we formerly referenced in check are now free to open the floodgates and spend unlimited money from sources other than individuals and political committees (which must continue to contribute according to the amounts traditionally limited by the Federal Election Commission). Again, sources such as personal finances, corporate profits, union dues, as well as large private donations would seem to appropriately account for the majority of any significant increase with regard to overall campaign spending.
It appears the relative landscape - and indeed power, of the FEC-regulated entities and independent speakers has undergone an almost diametric alteration by the legal provision for some 'person(s)' to inject unregulated amounts of financing in order to stimulate their campaign endeavors, without providing such an opportunity on equal footing. Lets view the campaign finance world as a sort of artificial, hyper-regulated market created by the government for a minute. In this model, power becomes determined primarily through spending within the marketplace.
In this vein, the requirement that only government-approved money may legally enter the market system is an underlying fundamental element. This is to suggest that the statutory contribution caps may effectively operate as, and in turn maintain a method of electoral equilibrium. The idea is that power could ascertain a form of balance based on the size of the contributions each entity could accept.
However, in practice - it would seem half the market of political spending is still extensively regulated, while the other half is extensively free, after the on January 21, 2010 reversal on behalf of the Supreme Court.
And it would seem there can be no equilibrium after such a ruling, as long as the system of regulation is premised the way it is - and probably should be, on a closed system. This presupposes the virtue of any hyper-regulated market allocated toward campaign finance must hinge definitively on the exclusion of monetary contributions gained outside of the sovereign system (not to mention that recapturing some essence of coherency with regard to any form of electoral equilibrium is, as a policy matter, critical to the continued functionality of any model describing an effective campaign finance market).
And so, providing the political process engineered by the government of the United States is somehow undermined as the title of 'personhood' is applied to partnerships and corporate entities, in what ways might the political process be effected by reserving the right to implement independent expenditures and electioneering communications, and the likes, strictly to actualized citizens of the United States rather than those simply meeting the requirements of 'personhood' status?
In what ways would actions taken toward this direction provide an injustice for the political landscape of American citizens, partisans, corporations and partnerships, as well as international corporate entities with vested interests?
Does a corporate fictional ‘personhood’ encroach upon American citizenry in such a way that such a nation may begin to shed its sovereignty, or perhaps worse - attempt to assimilate all ‘persons’ through legislative imperialism?
If an international corporation has a say in the realm of American politics due to it's being identified as a 'person', should any and all entities qualifying as a 'person' be afforded the same rights as a national American citizen?
In there any looking back once citizenship is internationally personified?
Good god
One Love
Edited by Bailey, : added jive ..
Edited by Bailey, : sp.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by crashfrog, posted 10-19-2011 2:03 PM crashfrog has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 63 of 93 (638350)
10-21-2011 4:37 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by Dr Adequate
10-21-2011 4:07 PM


Re: Not personhood, corporathood
If it's his own, then he's not doing it qua employee of the corporation.
Well, but that's the problem - money is fungible. Money spent by the corporation for political campaigns can just be money given to employees with a "hint" about which campaigns they should donate it to.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by Dr Adequate, posted 10-21-2011 4:07 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by Dr Adequate, posted 10-21-2011 10:24 PM crashfrog has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 64 of 93 (638353)
10-21-2011 5:02 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by crashfrog
10-21-2011 3:59 PM


Re: Not personhood, corporathood
Are you sure this is true? I'd like to see the relevant evidence.
Yes. Straight out of the opinion.
Justice Kennedy writes:
If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.
The implication is that a corporation has the same rights as a citizen.
These aren't examples of unique restrictions on the speech of corporations, but of unique restrictions on the speech of persons participating in certain kinds of markets. For instance, the requirement to place certain labels on certain kinds of goods holds true regardless of whether the products are sold by corporations or by individuals.
And the last time you saw a calorie count on a bake sale cookie was....?
I think speech is considered speech, and I don't understand how you restrict the ability of a corporation to hire certain kinds of speech on its behalf without infringing on the rights of a person who works for the corporation to hire certain kinds of speech.
Congress has the explicit authority to regulate commerce. There are laws about from which sources and under what conditions a corporation can buy the basic good its needs to provide the sevices that are in its charter! All this would regulate would be the amount of its assets a corporation could spend on media outside of its charter. We do this for non-profits right now. They have to spend at least 51% of their money on non-political activities or else they loose their status. They are going after Karl Rove's Crossroads group right now for that. There is absolutly no reason why we couldn't expand the consequences of the regulation from loosing non-profit status to the ability to stay organized as a corporation to begin with.
And also I'm not sure how you restrict the ability of corporations to participate politically without also restricting the ability of unions to participate politically.
I may be unique as a liberal in that I don't think unions should be able to spend unlimited money either. Thats how California got its regressive 3 strikes laws. Prison unions were involved in lobbying for the change to boost business.
While I share most people's concerns about the distorting influence of money on politics, I think the reform won't work from the supply side. I think we have to move to a system where either all campaigns are funded publically, or one (advanced by political theorists at MIT) where anybody can donate what they like, but the donations are obscured, such that the politician and his campaign (or anybody else) aren't able to determine who actually made any particular donation. It becomes impossible to influence a campaign except in the most general sense if the politician isn't able to connect any particular donation to any particular interest.
So you would be limiting the speech of the person donating in that they could not announce that they were the source of the donation? All you are doing in that sense is perserving this notion that money == speech while at the same time restricting ACTUAL speech in order to make it work.
I agree that public financing would be the best bet.

BUT if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born --a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance? Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on. Are these things, and the blessings they indicate in future, nothing to, us? Can our gross feelings be excited by no other subjects than tragedy and suicide? Or is the gloomy pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrifice of the Creator? --Thomas Paine

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by crashfrog, posted 10-21-2011 3:59 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 65 by crashfrog, posted 10-21-2011 5:30 PM Jazzns has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 65 of 93 (638356)
10-21-2011 5:30 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by Jazzns
10-21-2011 5:02 PM


Re: Not personhood, corporathood
The implication is that a corporation has the same rights as a citizen.
Certainly not in the material you've quoted, which refers only to association of citizens. And the First Amendment does, indeed, refer to an unabrigable right of Americans to speak both individually and as assemblies. Justice Kennedy doesn't seem to be referring to anything but that constitutional right. There's nothing in the First Amendment that qualifies that right or says that the government can punish citizens for engaging in political speech as part of a certain kind of assembly but not as another kind of assembly.
I know that the common understanding of the ruling in Citizens United is that the SCOTUS found that corporations had a First Amendment right, but I'm increasingly thinking that isn't the case. The material you've quoted from Kennedy would seem to prove me right about that - he's referring to the fact that individuals don't lose their First Amendment rights to act as assemblies just because the kind of assembly they're in is called a "corporation." In other words, corporations can enjoy the First Amendment protection of their speech not because they possess some kind of fictional personhood but because a corporation is an assembly of people who enjoy First Amendment rights both as individuals and as a group.
And the last time you saw a calorie count on a bake sale cookie was....?
When it was for sale in a store. Are you being facetious or do you really not understand the difference between a bake sale fundraiser and retail sales of foodstuffs? You don't honestly believe that some foods have nutrition labels because corporations sell them, do you? I'd be very, very surprised if that's the actual law.
Congress has the explicit authority to regulate commerce.
Interstate commerce.
I may be unique as a liberal in that I don't think unions should be able to spend unlimited money either.
And individuals? Should wealthy individuals be allowed to spend unlimited money?
If the answer is "no", then you're opposed to something that has nothing to do with corporate personhood; you're actually opposed to unlimited political donations from any source. I don't specifically disagree with that, since I think contribution limits result in candidates having to appeal to a broad base of support instead of to a narrow segment of deep pockets.
So you would be limiting the speech of the person donating in that they could not announce that they were the source of the donation?
Maybe, but I don't think it's political speech to say to someone "hey, I cut you a check." And frankly I don't think we need to prevent people from saying that. As long as the politician can't connect a particular payment to a particular donor, it doesn't matter what people say, because they'll be drowned out by the people who say "oh, I donated" but are actually just lying. (If we want to talk more about this reform system I'll flesh out the details but suffice to say now that there's a system where the donations are held in escrow and portioned out over time, so that a donor can't say "oh, that check for $200.12 was mine; I added the twelve cents so you would know it was me." The campaign gets the money, but in the form of a lumped payment from the escrow account.)
All you are doing in that sense is perserving this notion that money == speech
Money isn't speech, but money is how you buy speech. "Free speech" doesn't refer to its price, if you'll pardon the pun. The question is one of the allocation of scarce resources - posters, airtime, the expertise and time of commercial producers - and I see no reason not to have the market allocate those resources, the same as it always does. We can take the influence of money out of politics without having to force broadcast engineers, voiceover artists, and graphic designers into public indentured servitude.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by Jazzns, posted 10-21-2011 5:02 PM Jazzns has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 66 by NoNukes, posted 10-21-2011 6:31 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 75 by Jazzns, posted 10-22-2011 1:02 AM crashfrog has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 66 of 93 (638363)
10-21-2011 6:31 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by crashfrog
10-21-2011 5:30 PM


Re: Not personhood, corporathood
I know that the common understanding of the ruling in Citizens United is that the SCOTUS found that corporations had a First Amendment right, but I'm increasingly thinking that isn't the case. The material you've quoted from Kennedy would seem to prove me right about that - he's referring to the fact that individuals don't lose their First Amendment rights to act as assemblies just because the kind of assembly they're in is called a "corporation."
I take issue with your characterization.
At the risk of being seen as cynical, the quote in question might well be an accurate summary of some of Kennedy's reasoning, but I don't believe his words can be taken at face value.
When corporations use their general funds to participate in the political process, the individuals who actually own the company (perhaps through investments by whoever manages their retirement funds) are not consulted about whether they agree with such participation. Instead, a relatively small group of people, namely the managers of the company, get to decide that for the real owners.
In other words, the effect of Citizens United is to preserve the free speech rights of the corporation and not the free speech rights of the owners whose opinions are given no weight.
Further, the four dissenting Justices expressed themselves in this way:
quote:
The basic premise underlying the Court’s ruling is its iteration, and constant reiteration, of the proposition that the First Amendment bars regulatory distinctions based on a speaker’s identity, including its identity as a corporation.
While that glittering generality has rhetorical appeal, it is not a correct statement of the law. Nor does it tell us when a corporation may engage in electioneering that some of its shareholders oppose. It does not even resolve the specific question whether Citizens United may be required to finance some of its messages with the money in its PAC. The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.
Here is some of that language that the dissenters point to from the majority as signalling that the actual issue is the corporation's free speech.
quote:
By suppressing the speech of manifold corporations, both for-profit and non-profit, the Government prevents their voices and viewpoints from reaching the public and advising voters on which persons or entities are hostile to their interests.
While Kennedy might have said some words about protecting the right of associations of people, a strong argument, with which four Justices would agree, can be made that the decision actually recognizes and protects a first amendment right for a corporation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by crashfrog, posted 10-21-2011 5:30 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 67 by crashfrog, posted 10-21-2011 7:05 PM NoNukes has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 67 of 93 (638366)
10-21-2011 7:05 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by NoNukes
10-21-2011 6:31 PM


Re: Not personhood, corporathood
At the risk of being seen as cynical, the quote in question might well be an accurate summary of some of Kennedy's reasoning, but I don't believe his words can be taken at face value.
Oh, I see. So it was actually Kennedy's secret plan to create a race of corpor-people. Well, why didn't you just say so! Viewed from the perspective of someone who is clinically insane, yes, clearly Citizens United was an attempt to fulfill the secret dastardly plan of the Framers to create the Borg.
When corporations use their general funds to participate in the political process, the individuals who actually own the company (perhaps through investments by whoever manages their retirement funds) are not consulted about whether they agree with such participation.
Well, I disagree. That's not how corporations work - they are, however diffusely, obligated to follow the wishes of the owners/stockholders. In fact there's legal penalties if they do not. The First Amendment grants the right of people to assemble to lobby the government. It makes no stipulations as to whether that assembly is internally governed by a consensus process (example: OWS) or by a one-vote-per-share process.
Here is some of that language that the dissenters point to from the majority as signalling that the actual issue is the corporation's free speech.
Then you're making my case for me. There's nothing in that language that even obliquely refers to any notion of First Amendment rights that stem from the equivalence of corporate and natural persons. Opponents of what they term "corporate personhood" are fleeing from phantoms.
You've got the four dissenting justices referring to a ruling that somehow affirms the free speech rights of corporations distinct from the free speech rights of individuals assembled as corporations. Well, fine, but show me that in the actual ruling. I'm no more inclined to take their word for it than yours, and so far, all you have is "trust me, this is the part where First Amendment rights of corporations as individuals is asserted. No, really trust me!"
It's not personal, but I don't. Much like the historical existence of Jesus this appears to be another case where everybody has a lacuna about what the evidence actually is - they're sure its there but nobody can point to it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 66 by NoNukes, posted 10-21-2011 6:31 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by NoNukes, posted 10-21-2011 9:12 PM crashfrog has replied

  
Bailey
Member (Idle past 4370 days)
Posts: 574
From: Earth
Joined: 08-24-2003


Message 68 of 93 (638367)
10-21-2011 7:52 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by subbie
10-19-2011 8:50 PM


Pleading Naive ...
My main point was that due to this "personhood", corporations are allowed to buy off politicians and sway what laws are enacted.
... The basic idea behind freedom of speech is that the remedy for speech that you disagree with is not to restrict that speech but rebut it with speech of your own in the marketplace of ideas. Obviously, this idea is the same whether the speaker is a corporation or an actual person. Speech is speech regardless of who the speaker is.
Perhaps this begs the question of whether silence is simply silence regardless who’s keepin’ mum?
Let me ask you this: what is it that you object to, that corporations are allowed to advocate for positions that you disagree with or that corporations are allowed to advocate for positions at all? Would you object to ...? Would you object to ...? Or do you simply object that corporations have too much money available to spend in attempting to influence an election?
To be sure, there must be strong ethical points in support of why failed executives shouldn't have to comply with standard judiciary requests inquiring what they may know in general - and when they knew it, with regard to an unsuccessful business venture attempted via American taxpayer capitol (considering the U.S. government hasn't a penny of its own), as well as whether or not all the information they submit to acquire huge loans and grants was actually completed, etc..
However, I'd surmise, whether or not affording the Fifth Amendment privilege towards suspect corporate entities effectively serves justice within a rule of law nation may raise quicker objections. I'm not at liberty to say really ..
Though it's true, I most always refuse to answer questions providing no wrongdoing took place
One Love

This message is a reply to:
 Message 17 by subbie, posted 10-19-2011 8:50 PM subbie has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by subbie, posted 10-21-2011 8:42 PM Bailey has replied

  
subbie
Member (Idle past 1255 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


Message 69 of 93 (638378)
10-21-2011 8:42 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by Bailey
10-21-2011 7:52 PM


Re: Pleading Naive ...
I have only the dimmest idea what any of that means, and can't begin to see what any of it has to do with the topic of this thread.

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate
...creationists have a great way to detect fraud and it doesn't take 8 or 40 years or even a scientific degree to spot the fraud--'if it disagrees with the bible then it is wrong'.... -- archaeologist

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by Bailey, posted 10-21-2011 7:52 PM Bailey has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 71 by Bailey, posted 10-21-2011 10:04 PM subbie has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 70 of 93 (638383)
10-21-2011 9:12 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by crashfrog
10-21-2011 7:05 PM


Re: Not personhood, corporathood
Well, I disagree. That's not how corporations work - they are, however diffusely, obligated to follow the wishes of the owners/stockholders. In fact there's legal penalties if they do not.
You are mistaken. What I described is exactly how large, publicly owned corporations work. Publicly owned corporations are not obligated to even determine the wishes of stockholders about their day to day operations. The stockholders recourse is to get rid of leadership (most likely at the next corporate election) if they don't like the directors' decisions. As long as the actions are rational and do not harm the corporation, the stockholder's have no recourse to sue the CEO or any other director for actions taken.
Did stockholder's get consulted when HP decided to get out of the tablet market by dumping their inventory of tablets at fire sale prices? Of course not! (Am I bitter because I did not get a cheap tablet? Yes!) Generally speaking, stockholders have no say in how a large corporation is run on a day to day basis. HP's CEO may well be looking for work soon if he isn't already, but almost certainly the shareholder's won't be able to sue him. If Corp Xdiddy wants to run a swift-boat campaign with corporate funds, they generally don't ask for shareholder permission.
Can you cite law or statute that backs up your impression regarding those legal penalties for not obeying the shareholders?
Oh, I see. So it was actually Kennedy's secret plan to create a race of corpor-people
That's not at all what I said. The paragraph in question isn't the sum total of everything that Kennedy said. Corporate people existed prior to the decision in Citizen's United. Citizen's United overturned a prior decision (Austin) which allowed limits on corporate speech that did not address the corporation's business operations.
And even if the paragraph in question were the sum total of Kennedy's written opinion, I don't think it is insane or paranoid to ask whether the reasoning in any judge or Justice's opinion is adhoc rationalization. Cynical perhaps, but not insane.
For example one might note that a number of Justices in Bush v. Gore used reasoning that while being sound jurisprudence, differed markedly from reasoning that the Justice favored in other cases. It is not insane to speculate that politics may have played a role in the decision.
And in a 5-4 decision, which is what Citizen's United was, I think we can consider and even adopt the reasoning of the dissent without being considered clinical.
It's not personal, but I don't [trust you NoNukes].
That isn't a problem for me. You should never have to apologize for asking someone to pony up the proof. That should be how all debates progress here. I'm not enamored of being described as clinical, but I can live with it.
Before I cite from the opinion, I want to point out that the point I discussed above, namely that corporations can operate politically without determining the wishes of the shareholder's is an important part of my argument. I've described how corporations actually work, and both the majority and the dissent acknowledge that in the opinion. The majority simply does not think that the compulsion on unwilling shareholders is a winning argument.
From the majority opinion.
quote:
The Government contends further that corporate inde-
pendent expenditures can be limited because of its interest
in protecting dissenting shareholders from being compelled to fund corporate political speech. This asserted interest, like Austin’s antidistortion rationale, would allow the Government to ban the political speech even of media corporations. See supra, at 35—37. Assume, for example, that a shareholder of a corporation that owns a newspaper disagrees with the political views the newspaper expresses. See Austin, 494 U. S., at 687 (SCALIA, J., dissenting). Under the Government’s view, that potential dis-
agreement could give the Government the authority to restrict the media corporation’s political speech. The First Amendment does not allow that power. There is, furthermore, little evidence of abuse that cannot be corrected by shareholders through the procedures of corporate democracy.
From Wikipedia on Derivative Suits
quote:
While, under traditional corporate law, shareholders are the owners of a corporation, they are not empowered to control the day-to-day operations of the corporation. Instead, shareholders appoint directors, and the directors in turn appoint officers or executives.
Derivative suits permit a shareholder to bring an action in the name of the corporation against the parties allegedly causing harm to the corporation. If the directors, officers, or employees of the corporation are not willing to file an action, a shareholder may first petition them to proceed. If such petition fails, the shareholder may take it upon himself to bring an action on behalf of the corporation. Any proceeds of a successful action are awarded to the corporation and not to the individual shareholders that initiate the action.
Additionally, other than a few mentions of associations of speakers, the opinions of the majority Justice is littered with statements about the First Amendment rights of corporations as speakers. I'll discuss Robert's concurring opinion a bit.
Roberts:
quote:
The text and purpose of the First Amendment point in the same direction: Congress may not prohibit political speech, even if the speaker is a corporation or union. What makes this case difficult is the need to confront our prior decision in Austin
Roberts also cites First National Bank v Bellotti which unequivocably held that corporations do have First Amendment Rights using the following language.
quote:
Nor do our recent commercial speech cases lend support to appellee's business interest theory. They illustrate that the First Amendment goes beyond protection of the press and the self-expression of individuals to prohibit government from limiting the stock of information from which members of the public may draw. A commercial advertisement is constitutionally protected not so much because it pertains to the seller's business as because it furthers the societal interest in the "free flow of commercial information." Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U. S. 748, 425 U. S. 764 (1976); see Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro, 431 U. S. 85, 431 U. S. 95 (1977). [Footnote 20]
We thus find no support in the First or Fourteenth Amendment, or in the decisions of this Court, for the proposition that speech that otherwise would be within the protection of the First Amendment loses that protection simply because its source is a corporation that cannot prove, to the satisfaction of a court, a material effect on its business or property.
Nowhere in Bellotti can be found the theory that corporations have rights because they are associations of persons.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 67 by crashfrog, posted 10-21-2011 7:05 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 73 by crashfrog, posted 10-21-2011 10:53 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Bailey
Member (Idle past 4370 days)
Posts: 574
From: Earth
Joined: 08-24-2003


Message 71 of 93 (638388)
10-21-2011 10:04 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by subbie
10-21-2011 8:42 PM


Re: Pleading Naive ...
It seems a fair number of people take issue when corporations hide behind the Fifth Amendment afforded them via ‘corporate personhood’, refusing to answer even basic questions, as it suits their liability.
This, in contrast to perhaps taking issue with ‘corporate personhood’ with regard to its potential ability to establish a particular candidacy or maybe implement a particular policy. That’s all.
The former translation was just a bit more tongue in cheek ..
One Love

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by subbie, posted 10-21-2011 8:42 PM subbie has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by subbie, posted 10-22-2011 2:27 PM Bailey has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 72 of 93 (638393)
10-21-2011 10:24 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by crashfrog
10-21-2011 4:37 PM


Re: Not personhood, corporathood
Well, but that's the problem - money is fungible. Money spent by the corporation for political campaigns can just be money given to employees with a "hint" about which campaigns they should donate it to.
But what if they decide to spend it on ice-cream instead?

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 73 of 93 (638396)
10-21-2011 10:53 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by NoNukes
10-21-2011 9:12 PM


Re: Not personhood, corporathood
I'll be honest, NoNukes, I'm not seeing where in any of those cites there's support for the notion that the SCOTUS in Citizens United ruled that corporations have First Amendment rights on the basis of being legal persons. The Roberts opinion does you no good unless you're also asserting that SCOTUS simultaneously affirmed union personhood, and nobody seems to think that's what happened.
I don't see where you've demonstrated what I asked you to prove. I continue to think that most people's interpretation of the Citizens United decision as affirming corporate personhood (to some extent beyond legal personhood) is mistaken.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 70 by NoNukes, posted 10-21-2011 9:12 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 74 by NoNukes, posted 10-22-2011 12:11 AM crashfrog has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 74 of 93 (638402)
10-22-2011 12:11 AM
Reply to: Message 73 by crashfrog
10-21-2011 10:53 PM


Re: Not personhood, corporathood
I'll be honest, NoNukes, I'm not seeing where in any of those cites there's support for the notion that the SCOTUS in Citizens United ruled that corporations have First Amendment rights on the basis of being legal persons
Perhaps I was obscure about the reasoning. I'll outline my argument.
1. Corporations engage in speech that is not the speech of the shareholders. The shareholders are never consulted on what the corporation is going to do.
2. That speech is protected under the First Amendment despite the fact that it is not the speech of the owners.
Because of the above, I suggest that best way to interpret the court decisions in Citizens United and in Belloti is that the court was protecting free speech for corporations without regard to whether the corporation was the speech of an association of owners. If you want instead to insist that the court was protecting free speech by management as the association of humans, I could not argue much with that, but in my mind that is equivalent to protection of the corporation.
Using your definition that corporate personhood only includes things like forming contracts, appearing in court, and the like, the I would agree that corporate personhood was not the basis of the decisions. But I've already acknowledged that. I said that I don't believe that such rights can be or should be removed by removing corporate personhood as you define it.
But I (and others) define personhood more broadly to include all ways in which corporations are treated under the law in the same way as are natural persons. I would say that when the Court decided the Fourteenth Amendment extended first amendment law to corporations, they expanded the definition of personhood.
And even then it would not make sense to say that the first amendment applies to corporations because of their personhood. But it would not be inappropriate to claim that corporations were being treated too much like people.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by crashfrog, posted 10-21-2011 10:53 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 76 by crashfrog, posted 10-22-2011 12:20 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 75 of 93 (638406)
10-22-2011 1:02 AM
Reply to: Message 65 by crashfrog
10-21-2011 5:30 PM


Re: Not personhood, corporathood
In other words, corporations can enjoy the First Amendment protection of their speech not because they possess some kind of fictional personhood but because a corporation is an assembly of people who enjoy First Amendment rights both as individuals and as a group.
I think we are talking about the same thing. I never suggested that Citizens United explicitly declared corporate personhood. That IS the interpretation though of some. My original quote was:
Jazzns originally writes:
In the most recent situation, corporations were granted a semblance of "freedom of speech" by the virtue that this is a right we grant to natural persons.
I believe is supported by that quote.
When it was for sale in a store. Are you being facetious or do you really not understand the difference between a bake sale fundraiser and retail sales of foodstuffs?
I do understand. One is regulated commerce and the other is not. In exchange for limited personal liability, Little Debbie must abide by the laws regarding the speech they MUST produce when engaging in the sale of food stuff. An individual is forgoing that protection when selling grandma's brownies at a bake sale and if you give someone salmonella then you can be sued personally.
You don't honestly believe that some foods have nutrition labels because corporations sell them, do you? I'd be very, very surprised if that's the actual law.
Thats my understanding. I could be wrong, but more importantly is why do you consider that surprising? A corporation, as a legal entity, can be a target of regulation under the commerce clause (as can an individual). It just so happens that what is being regulated in this case is speech.
We just consider it over burdensome to require grandma to put nutrition labels on her brownies when at a bake sale while we consider it perfectly okay to REQUIRE a corporation to do so. This is a perfectly sensible regulation of the speech of corporations.
And individuals? Should wealthy individuals be allowed to spend unlimited money?
If the answer is "no", then you're opposed to something that has nothing to do with corporate personhood; you're actually opposed to unlimited political donations from any source. I don't specifically disagree with that, since I think contribution limits result in candidates having to appeal to a broad base of support instead of to a narrow segment of deep pockets.
Political donations and unlimited advocacy of a candidate are different things. Note that contribution caps were explicitly kept in place by Citizen's United. They was essentially a minor victory for the critics of Citizen's United in that the notion that money == speech was somewhat refuted by the fact that donation caps remain constitutional.
My whole point, which I don't think you adequately responded to, was that corporations can have their advocacy limited by regulating their purchasing power of media outside of the scope of their corporate charter. We ALREADY do this for some classes of corporations like I described before. We simply would need to expand that idea to include all corporations.
Don't take away their free speech, just don't let them saturate the media. Free speech does not give you the right to stand outside my door with a bullhorn. You have the right to your ideas, you have the right to express them, but you do not have the right to dominate the public sphere by the sheer might of your voice.
Money isn't speech, but money is how you buy speech. "Free speech" doesn't refer to its price, if you'll pardon the pun. The question is one of the allocation of scarce resources - posters, airtime, the expertise and time of commercial producers - and I see no reason not to have the market allocate those resources, the same as it always does.
I submit that until the Internet gave us some hope, the market actually does a pretty shitty job of allocating resources for the transmission of speech. The fact that the currency of our political discourse is a 30 second TV commercial is a testament to how poor the situation really is. It is precisely the problem that a single individual can saturate the existing free market media that demonstrates the need for reform of which corporate regulation is only one part of the solution.

BUT if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born --a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance? Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on. Are these things, and the blessings they indicate in future, nothing to, us? Can our gross feelings be excited by no other subjects than tragedy and suicide? Or is the gloomy pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrifice of the Creator? --Thomas Paine

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by crashfrog, posted 10-21-2011 5:30 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
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