Are corporations persons?

[JollyRoger]

Sen. Sanders files amendment to end corporate personhood | The Raw Story

[Chas H]

I doubt the filling will go very far.

[dynalow]

CU says "corporations are persons?"
Help me out. I can't find that passage.

CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N

I read the decision although I admit skimming over some parts of it. Seems to me the meat of the reasoning is this:

............"2. Austin is overruled, and thus provides no basis for allowing the Government to limit corporate independent expenditures. Hence, §441b’s restrictions on such expenditures are invalid and cannot be applied to Hillary. Given this conclusion, the part of McConnell that upheld BCRA §203’s extension of §441b’s restrictions on independent corporate expenditures is also overruled. Pp. 20–51.

(a) Although the First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech,” §441b’s prohibition on corporate independent expenditures is an outright ban on speech, backed by criminal sanctions. It is a ban notwithstanding the fact that a PAC created by a corporation can still speak, for a PAC is a separate association from the corporation. Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy—it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people—political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence. Laws burdening such speech are subject to strict scrutiny, which requires the Government to prove that the restriction “furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.” WRTL, 551 U. S., at 464. This language provides a sufficient framework for protecting the interests in this case. Premised on mistrust of governmental power, the First Amendment stands against attempts to disfavor certain subjects or viewpoints or to distinguish among different speakers, which may be a means to control content. The Government may also commit a constitutional wrong when by law it identifies certain preferred speakers. There is no basis for the proposition that, in the political speech context, the Government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers. Both history and logic lead to this conclusion. Pp. 20–25.

(b) The Court has recognized that the First Amendment applies to corporations, e.g., First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti , 435 U. S. 765 , and extended this protection to the context of political speech, see, e.g., NAACP v. Button , 371 U. S. 415 . Addressing challenges to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, the Buckley Court upheld limits on direct contributions to candidates, 18 U. S. C. §608(b), recognizing a governmental interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption. 424 U. S., at 25–26. However, the Court invalidated §608(e)’s expenditure ban, which applied to individuals, corporations, and unions, because it “fail[ed] to serve any substantial governmental interest in stemming the reality or appearance of corruption in the electoral process,” id. , at 47–48. While Buckley did not consider a separate ban on corporate and union independent expenditures found in §610, had that provision been challenged in Buckley ’s wake, it could not have been squared with the precedent’s reasoning and analysis. The Buckley Court did not invoke the overbreadth doctrine to suggest that §608(e)’s expenditure ban would have been constitutional had it applied to corporations and unions but not individuals. Notwithstanding this precedent, Congress soon recodified §610’s corporate and union expenditure ban at 2 U. S. C. §441b, the provision at issue. Less than two years after Buckley, Bellotti reaffirmed the First Amendment principle that the Government lacks the power to restrict political speech based on the speaker’s corporate identity. 435 U.S., at 784–785. Thus the law stood until Austin upheld a corporate independent expenditure restriction, bypassing Buckley and Bellotti by recognizing a new governmental interest in preventing “the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of [corporate] wealth … that have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas.” 494 U. S., at 660. Pp. 25–32.

(c) This Court is confronted with conflicting lines of precedent: a pre- Austin line forbidding speech restrictions based on the speaker’s corporate identity and a post- Austin line permitting them. Neither Austin ’s antidistortion rationale nor the Government’s other justifications support §441b’s restrictions. Pp. 32–47.

(1) The First Amendment prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for engaging in political speech, but Austin ’s antidistortion rationale would permit the Government to ban political speech because the speaker is an association with a corporate form. Political speech is “indispensable to decisionmaking in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation.” Bellotti, supra, at 777 (footnote omitted). This protection is inconsistent with Austin ’s rationale, which is meant to prevent corporations from obtaining “ ‘an unfair advantage in the political marketplace’ ” by using “ ‘resources amassed in the economic marketplace.’ ” 494 U. S., at 659. First Amendment protections do not depend on the speaker’s “financial ability to engage in public discussion.” Buckley , supra, at 49. These conclusions were reaffirmed when the Court invalidated a BCRA provision that increased the cap on contributions to one candidate if the opponent made certain expenditures from personal funds. Davis v. Federal Election Comm’n , 554 U. S. ___, ___. Distinguishing wealthy individuals from corporations based on the latter’s special advantages of, e.g., limited liability, does not suffice to allow laws prohibiting speech. It is irrelevant for First Amendment purposes that corporate funds may “have little or no correlation to the public’s support for the corporation’s political ideas.” Austin, supra, at 660. All speakers, including individuals and the media, use money amassed from the economic marketplace to fund their speech, and the First Amendment protects the resulting speech. Under the antidistortion rationale, Congress could also ban political speech of media corporations. Although currently exempt from §441b, they accumulate wealth with the help of their corporate form, may have aggregations of wealth, and may express views “hav[ing] little or no correlation to the public’s support” for those views. Differential treatment of media corporations and other corporations cannot be squared with the First Amendment , and there is no support for the view that the Amendment’s original meaning would permit suppressing media corporations’ political speech. Austin interferes with the “open marketplace” of ideas protected by the First Amendment . New York State Bd. of Elections v. Lopez Torres , 552 U. S. 196 . Its censorship is vast in its reach, suppressing the speech of both for-profit and nonprofit, both small and large, corporations. Pp. 32–40. ................"

How does a decision saying, in effect, that laws and regulations limiting corporation's ability "to speak" are unconstitutional make corporations persons?
Connect the dots for me.

[dynalow]

Originally Posted by Chas H

I doubt the filling will go very far.

I agree.

[panZZer]

If the republicans can throw a wrench in anything- They are going to.
Cant have anything get straightened out- reguardless if its on their "watch" or not.

[Can't Know]

It depends on how they are defined under state law.

And I haven't researched every state and territory, but in most states, to my knowledge, they are treated as "persons" for legal purposes.

[Ara T.]

Yes. The same way the Egyptian Pharoahs were gods

[Botnst]

If you could not treat them as persons then they could not be sued, right?

I mean, you can sue a person but you can't sue a knife or a dog.

I'm asking.

[tonkovich]

Originally Posted by Botnst

If you could not treat them as persons then they could not be sued, right?

I mean, you can sue a person but you can't sue a knife or a dog.

I'm asking.

what a wonderful analogy. knives and dogs are often worth millions or billions of dollars? yes? and dogs and knives killed thousands of people, like union carbide in india? or destroyed an entire ocean outside your doorstep in new orleans? do tell.

[kerry]

Originally Posted by Ara T.

Yes. The same way the Egyptian Pharoahs were gods

[kerry]

If corporations are persons they should get the same moral education as human persons. It usually takes at least 9 or 10 yrs before human persons gain some moral center so corporations should have to go thru a similar process of moral conditioning before being let loose on the world.

[MTI]

Originally Posted by kerry

If corporations are persons they should get the same moral education as human persons. It usually takes at least 9 or 10 yrs before human persons gain some moral center so corporations should have to go thru a similar process of moral conditioning before being let loose on the world.

Perhaps we should set the bar a bit higher in the morality department than averge humans. However, since they are collectively operated by humans, that really isn't realistic.

[Botnst]

Originally Posted by tonkovich

what a wonderful analogy. knives and dogs are often worth millions or billions of dollars? yes? and dogs and knives killed thousands of people, like union carbide in india? or destroyed an entire ocean outside your doorstep in new orleans? do tell.

Can you answer my question?

I'm guessing all you have is a tediously obvious polemical.

[Botnst]

Originally Posted by MTI

Perhaps we should set the bar a bit higher in the morality department than averge humans. However, since they are collectively operated by humans, that really isn't realistic.

Touche'.

[compress ignite]

Artificial Construct (Under SOME LAWS) to treat Artificial Entities as "Persons"
[Whatever the F**K that means]Under SOME LAWS.