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Submitted on May 1, 02:35 ET
US18 - Limit Corporate Personhood
Description
Corporation's rights are inherently less than that of human beings. A corporation's rights are bestowed upon it by the state; whereas a human being's rights are inalienable, endowed by our creation. A history of judicial interpretation to expand  the rights of corporation has created unhealthy, undue, and unsustainable amounts of influence over our government. 

I propose that Congress pass legislation explicitly overturning Citizens United, and allowing the federal government to limit the amount of political expenditures that a corporation can make. The rights of real human beings, of course, will not be infringed, and will reaffirm all the 1st amendment rights of real people. In fact, it will relatively enhance real people's 1st amendment rights.
Arguments
1 of 5
"[C]orporations have become enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow. The money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its rule by preying upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is concentrated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln 1864
Submitted by sierra on May 1, 02:35 ET
14 Agree 1 Disagree
The limits should be:
1.  Since corporations are made up of people, they can have the corporate speech limited without limiting the speech of their constituent shareholders. 
2. Since corporations cannot be jailed, the CEO should be accountable for corporate crimes, regardless of the CEO's knowledge of the crimes. If there is a case of a rouge employee, that would be a crime committed by an individual anyways, but in cases of systemic lawlessness, it is the CEO that sets the standard the corporation lives up to.  They should be directly accountable.
Submitted by McArthur on May 15, 15:05 ET
3 Agree 0 Disagree 1 Reply
Corporate personhood is an analogy with a lot of overlap, but corporations don't actually have ALL the rights of living breathing humans (see: voting). We can pass limitations on corporate speech during elections as necessary, and corporations can retain other personhood rights that are not so limited by statute.
Submitted by Greg Orr on Sep 10, 19:39 ET
2 Agree 0 Disagree
The origin of Corporate Personhood is Dartmouth College v. Woodward, where the court found that Dartmouth has rights to its contractual obligations just like "people" do by way of Art 1 Sec 10 of the Constitution. There are plenty more cases supporting this since then, and Article 1, Section 1 of the US. Code clearly states this definition:


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;


Without these interpretations, corporations couldn't own property, file a lawsuit, be sued, enter a contract, be held accountable to civil law, be prosecuted under criminal law, etc.  


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.)

Submitted by Greg Orr on Sep 10, 16:43 ET
2 Agree 0 Disagree
"No state can possibly benefit from having that much money injected into a political campaign." - Sandra Day O'Connor
Submitted by Greg Orr on Aug 5, 13:43 ET
2 Agree 0 Disagree
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Counterarguments
1 of 1
I think that it sets a bad precedent for the legislature to target a specific decision of the court to craft an amendment to remedy.  I think it could interfere with separation of powers and there are more thorough ways of addressing the problems epitomized by citizens united.  Rather than treating the symptoms, let's treat the disease, lack of corporate accountability.
Submitted by McArthur on May 15, 15:08 ET
4 Agree 4 Disagree 3 Replies
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started by SherrodBrown on Sep 10

PETITION: Overturn Citizen's United

Sign my petition: "We, the undersigned, believe that democracy is not for sale. We believe that corporations are not people. And we hereby pledge our support to a Constitutional Amendment designed to overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United."
 0
started by GregOrr on Sep 10
last reply by McArthur on Sep 10

Long history of legislation resulting from Court decisions (1 reply)

I don't disagree with the idea of an amendment limiting/eliminating corporate personhood.  But an amendment specifically invalidating a Supreme Court decision would be an overreach of the separation of powers and a bad precedent.  

I support the motivation behind the policy idea, but the implementation of explicitly overruling citizens united is a bad means to a good end.
 +3
started by GregOrr on Sep 10

DailyKos poll/discussion of ending corporate personhood

See our poll/discussion at DailyKos about a constitutional amendment to end corporate personhood. The voters are with me, commenters not. I favor statutory limitations of corporate personhood rights like banning corporations from spreading false and misleading news on TV.
 +1
started by captainlaser on May 28
last reply by captainlaser on May 28

The issue is less of corporations as people (1 reply)

My personal limit is $2500 per campaign (one for primary and one for general) per candidate.
 +1
started by GregOrr on May 15

Need ideas about your 2nd point here

I agree that people in the corporate world (particularly the financial industry) need criminal and/or civil accountability for their actions. One of the biggest problems is that when they take big risks, they win big if things go well but they don't lose big if things blow up. They have an unbalanced incentive to push the envelope.
 +1
started by saritap on May 1
last reply by sierra on May 8

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.

 -1
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