| Pass through statute a limitation to corporate personhood and overturn Citizens United | |
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In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise-- the words "person" and "whoever" include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;
But Dartmouth only interprets that corporations should get person rights in that particular case and perhaps by presumption generally. Article I Section I of the US Code does not determine the meaning of the word person in the Constitution (only in statutes) and even explicitly mentions that corporations will only be assumed to be persons in statutes "unless context suggests otherwise" (the ability of context to suggest otherwise actually implies Congress's belief that corporations are not necessarily persons under the Constitution).
I think a statute could limit corporate speech and we could still generally assume that the word "persons" in statutes (and perhaps the Constitution) includes corporations. Corporations don't need to have the exact same Constitutional rights as natural persons, and the word persons doesn't have to mean the same thing in the Constitution and in every statute. It could be presumed that corporation have all rights unless circumscribed by Congress. (But you wouldn't allow Congress to circumscribe rights for natural persons.)
Long history of legislation resulting from Court decisions (1 reply)
I support the motivation behind the policy idea, but the implementation of explicitly overruling citizens united is a bad means to a good end.
DailyKos poll/discussion of ending corporate personhood
Need ideas about your 2nd point here
Is this possible? (5 replies)
Basically, we created corporations as business organizations that had severely limited powers that could only do what we authorized them to do. Now, the Supreme Court has said that these corporate persons that we created have unlimited political speech/spending. The Supreme Court did not say that every possible business organization that we could ever dream up (that still might be very similar to existing corporations) must get unlimited 1st Amendment rights.
| Congress should amend the Constitution to overrule the absurd Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court More detail | |
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| Amend the constitution to say that corporations are not people More detail | |
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| Require public financing for Federal elections. Candidates collect threshold number of small donations to qualify. More detail | |
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| Amend the Constitution to make clear that corporations are not persons and money is not speech More detail | |
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| Require that political ads be approved by a public fact-checking organization More detail | |
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| Prohibit foreign & government contractor influence in Federal elections and establish spending disclosure requirements More detail | |
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| Prohibit corporations from airing political ads that deliberately misrepresent the truth More detail | |
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| Prohibit corporations from spreading false and misleading news on television More detail | |
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| If you can't vote, you can't contribute to political campaigns. More detail | |
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| Prohibit the bundling of campaign contributions from lobbyists More detail | |
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| Restore democracy to its rightful position atop capitalism. More detail | |
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| The right to political speech is a right to have your voice heard, not a right to monopolize the conversation More detail | |
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| Koch Bros, Karl Rove and other Super PACs will again try to steal the election More detail | |
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PETITION: Overturn Citizen's United