Sonia Sotomayor, commenting during oral argument in the Citizens United case which challenges campaign finance restrictions on corporations:
“[Judges] created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons… There could be an argument made that that was the court’s error to start with…[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics.”
That is huge. Applying individual rights to corporate entities is a legal standard that’s been the norm for almost as long as the modern western world has had them; that a judge would challenge this at a Supreme Court level, even in oral argument, is massive. There’s no other way to describe it.
Sonia Sotomayor might well be the dreaded uberliberal the Republicans were terrified of.
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I know it’s important, but I don’t have enough information to have any idea whether or not it would be a good thing. Do you have any respectable links or resources that would help break down the pro’s and con’s of what this would entail?
– Robert D.
I am economically conservative, and I agree that it was a huge mistake to label corporations as individuals. As we’ve seen, whenever any shady dealings go down, it’s very difficult to convict specific people, because they are separate from the corporate entity.
Actually, I think I’m in favor of treating corporations as people. Only if that also mean they can be given the death penalty, though.
Ohhhhh, I think this is one VERY wise Latina indeed!
One of the big problems I have with people trying to get rid of campaign finance laws restricting corporations is that the people who work for those companies can already donate as individuals. Allowing them to use their company’s wealth and power is like giving them two voices instead of one.
… That is honestly incredible. I mean, I literally have trouble believing it. But I’m insanely thrilled all the same.
Aaaaaand now I know what Monday’s classes are going to be about.
/1L
//Go McGeorge
I don’t know enough to say whether this specific position is a good thing, but I most certainly think the willingness to consider it is.
Crazy times! Now to make sure *if* this gets swept away, that the new laws don’t end up doubly crazy.
That has actually been debated for some time: should a corporate entity be considered in the same light as an individual?
There was a Supreme Court case, can’t remember the name of it right now, where the Court ruled on this matter. The thing was, the Court ruled that the corporations in question couldn’t be viewed the same as individuals, but because of an aside the Chief Justice made during discussions was entered into the official decision by a court clerk, that aside was given full merit and was used ever since as the legal standing we have today.
Sotomayor might be bringing up the point that the aside wasn’t a true ruling and that the Court could reconsider. It is, by the by, within the prerogative of the Court to change its’ mind… and you’re also forgetting there are 5 conservative judges that aren’t immediately swayed by her stance…
There was a Supreme Court case, can’t remember the name of it right now, where the Court ruled on this matter. The thing was, the Court ruled that the corporations in question couldn’t be viewed the same as individuals
.
No, the Court didn’t rule. The case was
SANTA CLARA COUNTY v. SOUTHERN PAC. R. CO.,
118 U.S. 394 (1886)
and, as noted here,
.
“Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite simply pronounced before the beginning of argument in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company that:
.
“The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.”
.
Thus it was that a two-sentence assertion by a single judge elevated corporations to the status of persons under the law”
If this goes anywhere, I see every corporate headquarters you’ve ever heard of moving to Dubai. Is this practice common internationally, or is it relatively rare? I’ve never really seen any reason to think that the rest of the world would follow the U.S. on this aspect of international law.
Well, sure corporations should be considered individuals, except for that “no conscience to appeal to, nor any body to imprison” bit. Or the ability to avoid the coercive and taxation authority of the state through what amounts to complex legal aliases.
In the campaign finance law I think it’s much more ridiculous to consider donations “speech.” That is some bullshit.
If corporations are supposd to be people, then why can I only talk to representitives instead of the actual corporation itself?
And where did I originally learn about that old corporate ruling? Shadowrun.
Just started law school at GW in DC, so naturally I skipped class to go to the special hearing. Didn’t get to see the whole thing, but walked in on the rotating sessions just in time to hear Sotomayor start in on that line of thought.
My first thought was “Fuck yeah!”
My second thought was “She’s not wasting any time, is she?”
My first thought was “Fuck yeah!”
My second thought was “She’s not wasting any time, is she?”
And third thought: “Well, Fuck yeah!”
The implications of that statement make me want to weep, even if it is a single statement.
But if a corporation is no longer a person in its own right, does that mean that legal liabilities of corporations are now transferred to the owners? I always thought that was the point of making a corporation a legal person in the first place, because the old practice of a business owner being liable is unworkable when there are thousands of small shareholders.
And what about persons who are legally registered as corporations? How might this affect them?
It seems like people are conflating two issues. Yes corporations should be individually liable legal entities, that’s pretty much the whole point of them. AFAIK that’s not what Sotomayor is talking about here, rather she’s addressing that we take these useful legal fictions and then define them as actual human beings, with constitutional rights and other legal protections that they don’t need and shouldn’t have.
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