Sotomayor Ruffles Corporate Feathers
Sep 18th, 2009 by David Anderson
Justice Sonia Sotomayor raised a question that has been unchallenged for almost a century. She wondered if corporations have rights. Are corporations extensions of people and subject to the same basic rights? This question affects more than the first amendment case. Abandoning this principle would allow Chavez style seizure of corporate assets and the march of socialism. Let us hope President Obama does not get more “moderate” picks for the SCOUS. This interpretation would allow the government to ban political speech by the NRA, ACLU, Right to Life, Environmental Defense Fund, or whomever is out of favor. It could also further the proposed Rockefeller seizure of the internet.
WASHINGTON — In her maiden Supreme Court appearance last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a provocative comment that probed the foundations of corporate law.
During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court’s majority conservatives seemed persuaded that corporations have broad First Amendment rights and that recent precedents upholding limits on corporate political spending should be overruled.
But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong — and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights flesh-and-blood people have.
Dave, where did you pick up such drivel as this leap to ” seizure of corporate assets and the march of socialism”?
I have exactly the same question, Nancy. This hyperbole without explanation is not impressive.
I am glad that this First Amendment interpretation, treating a corporation as a person, is being raised. It is about time!
This interpretation is basically responsible for the overreaching power of the special interests over the actions of Congress. I find it hard to believe that our founders envisioned this abuse of the First Amendment.
I apologize if I did not explain myself well. I am not accusing the Justice of wanting to seize assets. I do believe that some Marxist sympathizers in the administration would.
Here is the reasoning. The 19th century cases grew out of populist led state governments wanting to appropriate assets of corporations illegally. The SCOUS recognized that a person’s right of property and other rights exist no matter what vehicle they use. A corporation therefore is an artificial person with the rights of its creators and owners. If you remove its constitutional protections generally, then there is no longer any legal basis for us not being a Chavez Democratic Socialist dictatorship. If she stuck with a narrow interpretation that would be bad enough, but opening the flood gates by reversing well over a century of legal precedent is disturbing.
The assets of a corporation belong to the real people who are its shareholders. Those are the people who retain their property rights - not some artificial person.
It is possible to preserve property rights for individuals who are using corporations as the vehicle WITHOUT relying on the problematic concept of corporate personhood.
In my opinion, Sotomayor struck at the heart of the issue. The corporate free speech issue is just a branch from the root issue of corporate personhood. It didn’t take a lot of legal intellect to say so, just a willingness to state the obvious, which apparently nobody else on the court could find.
Remember, before Sotomayor made that comment, the angle on this story was that the Court finally agreed to consider whether corporations had free speech rights, overturning the precedent that they did not. The pro-corporate viewpoint was that it is just fine for the Court to re-examine precedent in that case.
But when Sotomayor suggests going back further and examining the personhood concept, the pro corporate crowd freaks out - “We said it was OK to overturn precedent, but not THAT precedent!!”
The CEO represents the shareholders, who own the corporation. If the court were ever to rule that a ‘corporation’ has no First Amendment rights, the corporation need only be represented by and speak through the CEO; he or she will have First Amendment rights.
Unless, of course, the BO Marxists take-over the courts; then, words will have no actual meaning- sort of like the old USSR.
the corporation need only be represented by and speak through the CEO; he or she will have First Amendment rights.
CEOs already have unchallenged First Amendment rights.
But money is not speech, it is property.
Who was being deprived of free speech? Hundreds of thousands of hardworking people who scraped together 25 dollars to produce and market a documentary they thought was important. It is not some faceless corporation, but people like me who believe Hillary Clinton is a dangerous tyrant being deprived of our right to communicate a message. It is odd that Michael Moore’s did not run into the same problem.
When money is used to speak it is speech. When it is used to buy food, stopping people from doing so is stopping them from eating. There is no freedom of the press without the freedom to invest in getting the “press”, movie, advertisment, flyer, or internet message out. Shouting on the street will not get the message out. Spending money to put the message in a form that people can comprehend is the essence of what the founders wanted to protect. In that regard the Buckley decision was correct.
“But money is not speech, it is property.”
But it buys speech, in the media.
The last vestiges of McCain/Feingold are set to be struck-down during this term of the US Supreme Court. Finally.