Posted on 09/17/2009 2:09:37 PM PDT by Admiral_Zeon
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.
Judges "created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons," she said. "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."
After a confirmation process that revealed little of her legal philosophy, the remark offered an early hint of the direction Justice Sotomayor might want to take the court.
"Progressives who think that corporations already have an unduly large influence on policy in the United States have to feel reassured that this was one of [her] first questions," said Douglas Kendall, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I do not see anything bad here. I own a corporation and I am a conservative capitalist. That being said, corporations were not guaranteed anything in the Constitution. So, I invoke the broken clock rule here.
Wow, this thread is taking some scary twists and turns. I think Sotomayor may be looking for one of those mythical liberal penumbra’s that emanate from deranged minds. The “source” says
“Congress shall make no law ... or abridging the freedom of speech, ...”.
I don’t see anything there that says “except for ...” or that it applies only to a person acting individually. I don’t think my individual rights are forfeit when I join with others to exercise them in concert, including the money spent to exercise that right.
The “wise latina” (???) hard at work indeed.
Yes and it definitely is a 1st amendment violation ...
Yeah. Taxation without representation. One of driving factors in our revolution against King George.
Try getting a paycheck from a poor person when they are done with us and we are gone. I pay taxes and my corporation pays massive taxes. My corporation has a right to lobby the government for the burdens they levy on me.
IOW they have, as corporations, no constitutional rights not expressly granted to them by the legislatures that grant them status as "persons".
This is not to say that individuals who own corporations give up any constitutional rights by incorporating their businesses, but their businesses have no unalienable rights which legislatures are not free to take away.
Corporations are "persons" only at the whim of legislatures and hence their rights as persons are also subject to the whims of the legislatures which grant them personhood.
I think you could be right. Also, you never know, lifetime appointments can sometimes change people fundamentally. I am not a fool but I can hope that perhaps she will see the awesome responsibility that she has been granted and become an originalist. After all, some of the founders were originally on the side of the crown.
I am very interested in your take on this matter.
Taken with a short term view, Sotomayer is a left wing kook.
With a longer view, she may have a point worth arguing over.
Going back a few thousand years, which we do, she becomes very kook-like.
A confederacy of dunces if there ever was one!
CA....
No. That is an association, which is an entity consisting of individuals all of whom have all the liberties of individuals under the Constitution. A "Corporation" is a statutory entity which is only fictionally a "person". Corporations have limited liability which individuals and associations do not.
Oh here we go...
And, under the current administration and the liberal loons they can redefine what constitutes a “corporation”, no?
I’m not the right guy to argue this matter, but I do believe that corporations don’t just get a voice, but at this time they get a super-voice. Their pockets are deep and their ability to squash individual concerns is real.
While I do believe corporation’s concerns are concerns on behalf of the public who own parcels of that corporation, I still think there are some valid questions of just how much power corporations have, vs Joe Citizen.
I believe folks like Carry Okie would be able to explain this far better than I can.
I’m not a big fan of SoSo, so don’t get me wrong. I’m going to oppose her constantly over the upcoming decades. Still, in this instance, there may be ‘some’ validity to her reasoning.
How much is not for me to say.
That has always been true. You have to submit an application to the secretary of state to become a corporation. The rules for what constitutes a corporation are statutory and subject to the whim of the legislatures.
Your first mistake is assuming there is any consistent logic that Sotomayor feels obligated to apply ... :-)
And if you asked her that question, you would probably get an argument that unions are voluntary (!) associations of working-class individuals, thus speaking for those who "don't have a voice in this oppressive society", while corporations have extraordinary hiring-and-firing power over their employees which means they don't represent working-class people and are just an unfair amplification of their greed-motivated management.
I don’t disagree that corporations have a “super-voice”, but then again they may represent the interests of millions of shareholders, and that is a very large voice.
Free speech for corporations isn’t the problem, but a political-economic system designed for corruption is. A government obsessed with regulation beyond assuring a free market economy is going to attract the attention and interest of those they attempt to regulate. That such a government can grant privileges or inflict restraints by its very nature creates lobbyists. That the same government can award massive contracts also attracts lobbyists, and why shouldn’t it. The pile of money doled out of Washington and extra-constitutional regulations magnify the level of corruption.
If government had little or nothing to sell, the number of lobbyists would shrink as would the money flowing to politicians. But this government has everything to sell and wants people to believe that it is the businessman that is the problem, and not the politician.
The RNC, DNC, ACORN, most churches and a host of other organizations attempting to influence government are also incorporated. Should we silence them too because they are “corporations”? The corporation is not the problem.
Unfortunately, “groups” cannot exercise rights under the campaign finance laws at all, which must be incorporated under particular code. Try to solicit contributions and then air commercials under the general name of the “FReeper Group” in the next election. The Justice knows perfectly well that by disqualifying corporations she would be disqualifying freely associated groups and individuals as well. And that is the trap that has been laid for Free Speech from the beginning.
While I am sympathetic to your comments. I do believe there can be extremely negative aspects to recognizing corporations to be individuals, essentially what we do when we grant them the rights of individuals.
I’m not here to make trouble. I could in fact be remembering inaccurately some past conversations. None the less, I’m not comfortable at this time, just signing off on Corporations being recognized as having the same Constitutional rights you and I do.
What I would like folks to take away from my comments, is a healthy dose of curiosity, keeping some judgment in reserve as the discussion takes place. I wish I could make a better case, but I’m not able to and I hope someone else will come along and delve into this in manner that will help us all to see this clearly, or at least to understand more the problems both pro and con.
Take care.
I’ve read a lot of brilliant legal analysis on this thread but the fact remains that if corporations are weakened we all are at the mercy of unions like SEIU.
Well then they would be unionized instead of corporatized... thats the way the idiots on the left see it anyway...
I think the wise latina should go back to law school and stop diddling in things she seems to know very little about.
Throw the argument right back in her face and say that if corporations do not have rights then Institutions don’t either... Colleges across America can no longer use the First Ammendment to their advantage...
BANG how you like that wise latina that from a typical wise whitey... LOL
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